For My Parents…

Ok, I’m gonna put it out there. My mother is brilliant.
Not just brilliant, I mean, she really is amazing.
How she has the patience to deal with even 30% of the stress of having 3 daughters brings, I have no idea!

Her and my dad have brought us up to value the important things, to aspire to be well-rounded and self-sufficient, to be kind, to be helpful and to work hard for the things we want. As far as parenting goes, they really have smashed it.

We never really get a chance to tell our parents how grateful we are for our upbringings, and for the things they have sacrificed to give us our wonderful childhoods. The occasion is never really right to tell our parents properly how much their support, even now we are technically “grown-ups”, means to us. The moment is never right to sit them down and tell them quite how grateful you are for the things they did and the decisions they made about your upbringing, it’s just something that isn’t really said. We say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ but these little expressions can’t ever carry even a percentage of the true gratitude that we feel.

Even now, my mum gets all three of us calling her on the phone on a very very regular basis, ranting about the boys who have upset us, the girls who were mean to us, the employers who are winding us up, and generally whinging about how being a grown-up is not the eat-all-the-sweets-you-want, go-to-bed-whenever, no-worries happy dream land that we all imagined it to be and responsibilities and obligations kinda suck….

My dad is wonderful too, in a way only dads can be. He’s the type dad that I know will be able to tell when I’ve met the right guy, and it’s an absolute requirement that when the time comes, that guy asks my dads permission. No question about it.
My dad works so incredibly hard, and always has done, but he has also always made time for us, as a priority. I know he will always help me in whatever way he can, and he gives really bloody good hugs too!

Basically, my parents are really bloomin’ special, and I’m so so very lucky to have them on my side, always.

What brought me round to writing this today? Well, today is my mum’s birthday.
I was thinking of what to write for today, knowing it was this special date in the back of my mind, and I kept coming back to the fact that we never get a chance to say how grateful we are for the things our parents have done for us, and how I have this very unique opportunity to do so here.

My mum has had a funny few weeks – with major surgery on her neck only a few days after I left (terrible timing mum!) and recovering from that meaning no driving, no cooking and quite a lot of pain, and yet she has still been incredible. She has been on FaceTime to me out here while I settle in and work out how it all works, she has been trying to work out the french postal system (which is INSANE….there is quite literally zero logic) to send me some of the things I couldn’t fit in my suitcase. She has been being her usual wonderful self, when really she should have been looking after herself….but that’s just how she is. She will always put us first, even when we tell her not to. She’s wonderful like that.

So today my blog is for my parents. Thank you, for everything you have done. Thank you for always supporting me, for putting up with me when I am a stroppy cow, for helping me when I am in trouble, for drying my tears when I am upset and whooping and cheering with me when something brilliant happens.
Happy Birthday Mum, I’m so sorry I can’t be there but getting back from France at the moment just isn’t all that logistically possible.
Love you both so so much.
R xx