Contrast essay

There is no denying the love my parents once shared with one another. I’ve heard many of their stories of when they first met. Mom was in her senior year of high school and had recently broken up with her beau. One night she and her best friend Nancy were over to some friend’s house and what pulls up but a 56 Ford with Nancy’s friend Allen in the passenger seat and my dad in the driver seat. He looked at her, she looked at him and that’s all it took, it was love at first sight for both of them and they immediately started dating. From the stories, it is my understanding they were inseparable from that day forward. Back in those days, high school kids walked everywhere; to and from to school and to their jobs unless of course they had friends with transportation. Mom worked part time at Freezers’ and one night in particular she was walking home from work in the pouring rain. One of her guy friends from school was being a Good Samaritan and picked her up to give her a ride home, apparently not a good idea. Mom said dad was so jealous she had to promise never to ride in a car with another boy. Dad apparently was what some call a grease monkey and always had something to drive and it was usually fast. Mom loves to tell me how dad taught her how to get rubber and how good she was at it back in those days. I always wondered where my passion for loud, fast obnoxious cars came from! Another cute story was once during a nor’easter it snowed so much it nearly went as high as the second story windows. Everyone was snowed in for days and it had been 3 long days since mom and dad saw each other. Mom finally got herself shoveled out because she couldn’t stand not seeing him for any longer. She began walking to toward the Lambert road where my dad lived and low and behold, here comes dad in this huge old truck with great big tires on it coming to get mom. They say great minds think alike and obviously the telepathy was very strong between those two. Within 3 months of dating, they were engaged and set plans for the wedding. Young love, so full of life, excitement and new beginnings, they were ecstatic. They'd come from the same town, attended the same school and spent practically every waking moment with each other. There was no compromising because their decisions were mutual about the future, such as to where they’d buy their first home and raise their children. Although they had many things in common, love being the first and foremost, there were many circumstances they didn’t consider before tying the knot. First of all their upbringings were completely opposite; including religion, views on monogamy and lifestyles and in the end, these issues would be the demise of their marriage.

My mother was raised Pentecostal and her father was the minister of the local church. Mom was brought up to be a lady, prim and proper, to be polite and reserved. She attended church functions, sang in the church choir and was what some would call a “good girl” There wasn’t a lot of money coming in for a minister and carpenters wage but they did ok. They had clean clothes, food on the table and a roof over their heads. Dad on the other hand was from a Catholic family and grew up very poor. My grandfather was an alcoholic and spent all the money on booze and women. They lived in tar paper shacks, and went hungry most of the time growing up. I’ve been told they had to take interior walls down one winter to use for fire wood for heat so they wouldn’t freeze. Grampy V ruled all his kids by the “iron fist” and did whatever he damned well pleased no matter who got hurt.

Mom was the youngest of four sisters and they were all taught abstinence from the very beginning of their young lives. They never witnessed bad behavior inside the home; there was no drinking, swearing or smoking, ever. Once a man and a woman fell in love and wed, it was to be forever. Mom watched her parents have respect for one another, care about each other and their family. Dad grew up witnessing very bad behavior from his father. From what I’ve heard, gramps was drunk all the time and would be seen driving around with strange women in his car, leaving his family home alone, penniless. Sometimes he’d be missing for days on end having spent all his pay on booze and women, and that’s when he’d come home, once it was all gone. It was then; of course he’d be pissed at my grandmother for not having supper on the table and start in with the abuse.

I don’t want it to sound like mom was raised in a fairy tale world because that would be far from the truth. I’ve heard growing up back in those days was tough for everyone. There wasn’t a lot of money but because of the family dynamics, my mother’s parents most made the best of bad times. They were good people, earning and honest living and enjoying the simple things in life. Dad has told me many times while growing up he’d tell himself over and over , I’m not going to be like him, I will not grow up to be like my father, and for the most part, he didn’t. There was there was smoking and drinking in the houses dad grew up in, and he still drinks and smokes to this day. He grew up in the house of an alcoholic and all that stuff you hear about that happens in those types of homes, really does happen. He was destining for failure but he actually broke the mold and became a better man than my grandfather ever thought of being.

After a few years of marriage, it started to fall apart and unfortunately the wounds were too deep to rectify the damage. My mother couldn’t stand his running around; he couldn’t stand the holier than thou. He liked to stay out late and party, she didn’t. Even after the divorce she never had a bad word to say about him, nor did he. The end of their marriage wasn’t amicable but they made sure their children got through it with as little scarring as possible. Although my parents couldn’t see eye on everything, and had a failed marriage, they still raised me with all the love and affection any parent could, and I am very thankful to still have them both in my life today.