by Thomas M. Pender
I feel sorry for people who weren’t raised by my parents. I mean, I know there are wonderful and amazing parents all over the planet, but my parents had special ways of doing things that were fun and loving, and taught us wee three a lot about love, simply by observation.
Back in olden times, like when I was four, fathers went off to work and mothers stayed home to raise the babies, because a family could survive on one income. I remember eating breakfast together, and then Dad getting up to leave for work. My parents would kiss and one would say, “I love you,” to which the other would reply, “I love you more.” As Dad slowly made it out the door, with kids hugging at him, my folks would continue the “argument”: “No, I love you more” . . . “Nope, I love you more!”
Once Dad was outside the closed door, and audio was suspended, the tiff continued with visual cues. Both parents would stab their pointed fingers in the air at each other, to silently keep up the “No, I love you more” debate. Over time, we smaller Penders would get into it. Debi and I would point at Dad, too, and his pointings began to go all over the place, as he now had three Penders to outlove. I recall Kristi being there, too, but she was small enough to be up in Mom’s arms, and I don’t quite remember if she pointed with us.
Snapshot memories like this remind me how lucky I was and am to have the family I have. I have tried to continue what I learned from my parents in teaching my boys about life and love, but we’ve never quite been in a situation where the pointing came about. We have our own personalized rituals, as all families and generations do, but something so simple and pure as this scene is always sad to lose . . . but a joy to remember!
Rubber Chicken Soup 