Tables, Corners, Anywhere Hidden

I have to say that I respect my mom more than anyone else at the moment. I've always had. Any other American-raised woman would've left, split, skedaddled, given up on the seemingly hopeless case I call Dad. But she didn't. She made her choice to love and commit to my father and she did. When I was young, there were a lot of fights. Scary ones. My mom never yells; my dad and I joke about how she doesn't have the lung capacity to even if she wanted to. But my dad yells. Loud. And fiercely. When he'd yell, I hid. Under tables, in corners, anywhere where I could escape from the fire. And I'd cry. I don't know why, probably because of some sort of fear, but I'd cry until it ended. It was even worse when he was angry at us. But whenever that happened my mom always came and threw herself in the way, redirecting the anger towards her.

For a while I thought they were going to get divorced. But they didn't. One thing about my father is that he is and will always be faithful to my mom. And my mom never takes the easy way. Over more than a decade of years my mom patiently stuck by my dad and worked with him. And over that time period, his temper was turned down many notches. That's not to say he got rid of it. I don't think he ever will. But the fights are rare and the extreme yelling pretty much dormant. Instead of slaying it, my mom tamed the dragon. She was our knight in shining armor.

I look at my parents relationship now and I see one I want to have when I get married. I don't want to marry a hard-headed goat per se, but I want a relationship full of good joyous times. But in between the good times I want conflict and fights, to prove that we aren't perfect, that we're merely human. And when those conflicts come up, I want to rise above them together. I want a relationship where we show the true meaning of love: that through the good and the bad we stay committed and we grow. I want my kids to look at us and see their knights in shining armor.