Day #3: Letter To Your Parents

If I'm honest, there is only a small window of time in my childhood where I saw you two as a unit. I learned too early that you were two separate people, with two separate lives.

For as long as I  can remember, I have loved you in different languages.

Dad,

I remember all too vividly my first few weeks at my new high school in Florida. I shrank in your absence. It was then that I realized just how much influence you had in shaping my self-esteem and building my confidence. I had always been your little girl. Mom still tells the story of how you wouldn’t let anyone hold me as a baby. There were no special exceptions for family or close friends. “You can look at her from right there,” is what she says you’d say.

As I grew, I became your buddy. You took me everywhere. Believe or not, I was so proud to be known as Mr. Holbert’s daughter.

But here, all of this was null and void. I wasn’t anyone’s little girl. Here, I was on my own.

I missed you more than words, matter of fact I only spoke when spoken to. I’d never known so much uncertainty and instability. Our new relationship consisted of Sunday evening phone calls and summer visits.

My first summer back home you arranged for me to have my wisdom teeth taken out. You took such good care of me. I didn’t even know you knew how. Mom was always the one I cried for when I was sick. I guess we both learned something new that day.

I love the carefree spirit that returned to me as soon as I was back home. All I had to worry about was what my friends and I were doing later that night. I had no doubt that you’d take care of everything else.

Six years later, after enduring the biggest heartbreak of my young adult life, I came back home indefinitely. To be taken care of. To heal. While you were unaware of  the circumstances that brought me home, you made me smile and laugh, just like you always had.

You would leave a box of my favorite candy with a smiley face drawn on the front. We spent weekends going on bike rides, watching too many movies and eating chili dogs from Gene’s.

Thank you for loving me and letting me be a kid. I know that letting go isn’t easy.

Love,

Tiff

Mom,

We never bonded more than the years of just you and I living in the sunshine together. I couldn’t fathom up and leaving you when it was time for me to go to college. Thankfully, USF was right down the street.

We took care of each other. Every night after classes and coaching, you’d find me sleeping on the couch with unfinished homework on my lap. You nagged me to sleep and save my homework for the morning. I nagged you to eat something other than just a bowl of cereal before bed.

We enjoyed the beach on the weekends and extravagant lunches after church on Sundays. After all, it was just the two of us.

But, we’ve had a rocky relationship as mothers and daughters often do. You got the brunt of my anger and pain once it finally surfaced--because you were there. I can only thank you for enduring that, and forgiving me once I finally came to my senses.

When I decided to leave the nest, I broke your heart. I’m sorry. I’ve become all to familiar with the loneliness you must have felt with too many hours to fill each day and no one to share your time.

But you came through it. I’m incredibly proud of your strength and resilience as a woman. If you came through it, I will too. I am my mother’s daughter.

I’ve found myself needing you now more than ever. I call just to be comforted by your voice, to ask why my coffee is never as perfect as yours, or what color Maalox to buy when I’ve got an upset stomach.

Your visits are too few and far between. I never want you to leave. I’m looking forward to my visit in June. You’ll spoil me like you always do, and I’ll let you because I miss you like crazy.

Love,

Your baby