Many of you, parents, are home with your school-age children during this coronavirus pandemic—something none of us have experienced in our lives. Life is different for all of us right now. I wrote this blog post about my parents around a month ago, then I got busy and didn’t post it. I hope you glean some encouragement as a parent, no matter your age or the ages of your children. You ARE making a difference in your children’s’ lives. They will appreciate you one day.

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Not all of us are born into a perfect family. In fact, none of us are because no one is perfect. However, I had two good parents. Notice I used the word, “parents”. They weren’t the best together as husband and wife; but both of them were ideal for me as my parents because God appointed them to be my parents in His sovereign plan.

My mom was full of laughter. She played with me and my younger sister as we grew up. She had some of the corniest jokes, but she made us giggle so many times. My mom was a great playmate for us. But she also stayed up many times into the early morning hours to sew beautiful dresses for us, usually matching (my poor younger sister grew into my identical hand-me-downs). Mom was the parent that spent the most hours with us giving us daily care. I can only remember a few times that my mother was not there with us, usually just for a weekend away. She never complained about taking care of us.

Dad was our provider by serving our country in the military, so we not only had the basics of life but had many opportunities to travel to places some people only read about in history books. He had the ability to remember most of what he read, even decades after he’d read it. My sister inherited that gene. I inherited my mother’s list-making ability. He was a man of few words at home: but stop at a gas station and find another adult male, the words poured out of him. The rest of us learned patience the hard way.

By the time my husband, Slick, and I were married, my parents were divorced—for the second time. Yep, they had divorced while my sister and I were in elementary school, remarried each other a year later, then divorced during my last semester in college which was also the year of my marriage. Like I said, tumultuous together.

But what they did while my husband had cancer and our son was a toddler spoke volumes of love to me and my family. Once we moved back to Arkansas in order to be closer to our families, we had very few friends around us. Most of our friends were back in Texas. The few friends we had in Arkansas didn’t live nearby. I relied heavily on both of my parents to help me navigate and obey the rules of the hospital which prevented my son from being in the ICU to be near his father.

My mother was working a full-time job, but she would pick up Justin from his daycare and take him home each evening during the week so I could visit Slick in ICU during the evening hours. She fed Justin his dinner and listened to his descriptions of his day while decompressing from her job and enduring the effects of her cancer, also. My mom was my rock and my rock star during those days.

My father, who lived in another state, drove to North Little Rock each Friday night and spent the weekend taking care of us. He would feed and entertain Justin during the day while I made visits with Slick and met with doctors and other family members in the waiting room. There were many times you could find the two of them out at Lake Conway trying to catch a fish from the banks of the lake. My dad loved to fish, and I am so thankful for him teaching my son this “guy” thing. Wiggly worms and fishy fish are not my things! On Sunday evening, he would drive home to start his work week traveling on his job.

I know I never truly appreciated all that my parents did for me during those days. I could barely comprehend what the doctors were telling me about Slick’s condition each day or have the strength to bathe my son and get him and myself to bed each evening. My heart aches even now that perhaps they never really knew how much I loved them and appreciated every single sacrifice they made for me and my family. And since they are both now deceased, I cannot express that to them. They were not perfect parents. No parents really are. Our family had struggles, and we all endured the consequences of bad decisions. But they were the best examples of parenting for me because God gave me to them and them to me.

Matthew 7:11—If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!

My Heavenly Father knew exactly who I needed during my childhood and during Slick’s illness. I am so thankful for my parents’ sacrifices to take care of me in one of my darkest times. I would not have survived without them. I love you, Mommy and Daddy!