My Mom and Dad

Today is my parents 43rd Wedding Anniversary. For some weird reason I thought all my life that their anniversary was June 9th - but it's not - it's the 5th. So I've never wished them Happy Anniversary on time - until now!

I first met my parents in 1969 - when I was born. I don't remember it but I'm sure I was very happy to meet them.

Everyone should know the wonderful things they have done in the last 43 years. Many people know bits and pieces, but you have to know the whole story. One day I'll write it in a book and then advertise it on this blog, Dave Letterman will interview me, I'll make millions... But for now I'd like to share memorable events about my parents.

When I was very young my Dad, who has a weak stomach, was going to make brownies - BY HAND! He went to the kitchen, gathered the needed ingredients and set off to make us the chocolaty delectable treat. After a while we heard sounds of grunting - almost retching coming not from a bathroom but from the before mentioned kitchen. When my mom went in to investigate, she found that Dad was, in fact, making the brownies by hand - literally. He had mixed the ingredients in a bowl and was, with bare hands, squishing the brown goo between his fingers, but trying not to hurl as the slime of the eggs apparently reminded him of nasal discharge!
I don't know if he actually finished the brownies, and if so - DID WE EAT THEM???!!

On a similar note...My Mom has had quite a few culinary tales with "not so happy" endings - here's one that I recall.

While living in the Caribbean country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines it was difficult to get a lot of the foods we were used to in America, and food was not cheap. One particular day my Mom was going to make my Dad a birthday cake. A lovely 2 layer fluffy chocolate cake with chocolate icing! She toiled in the tropical heat, tediously measuring each ingredient to make sure this cake was just right for my Dad's special day. After the batter was mixed to the perfect consistency (with a utensil - NOT by hand) she poured it into the round cake pans, set it into the perfectly heated oven and even let my sister and I lick the big orange mixing bowl! So as not to BURN the cake, Mom set the timer! Precisely 45 to 50 minutes later (ok, ok I don't remember how long EXACTLY - give me a break!) it was TIME! Donning heat proof gloves, Mom opened the oven door ever so gently - as to not bump anything and cause the cake to "fall". She waved off the wave of steam. When she peered in to see the scrumptious creation, she let out a groan. , OH NO!! The cakes were done all right- but came out of the oven the same height as they went in. The "pancake" cakes could be salvaged, right? That is - until the parts that weren't cemented to the pan fell out in cakey clumps. Whatever could've gone so terribly wrong?? The answer was still sitting on the cabinet - three answers, actually, sitting there still in their oval white - uncracked shells. Mom had forgotten the EGGS!
Poor Mom - thoughts rushing through her head: the WASTE, the EXPENSE, the ruined birthday...it all became TOO MUCH. Mom tossed the pans across the kitchen into the empty sink and escaped to her bedroom in a tearful rage. I wisely stayed in the kitchen, decided that cake should NEVER be wasted - I bravely walked to the sink, picked up one of the now-cooled-off cake pans, sat down and ate the best birthday cake I'd ever tasted!

I'm sure there's a moral there somewhere!

I could, and should, go on and on about how my parents gave so much of themselves to make other's lives better, and to shine the love of Christ. Like the labor intensive hours my Dad spent helping to build churches - not just with bricks and mortar, but with God's word, and prayer. Or like how my Mom developed a formula to feed starving babies, bellies ironically swollen with the blight of malnutrition, teaching other Mom's how to raise chickens, grow kitchen gardens, and for goodness sakes - breastfeed your babies - it's FREE! Or about the drowned little boy on the black sand beach of Sandy Bay on whom my Mom successfully performed CPR while others were rubbing sand on his belly because that's all they knew to do. It's almost 30 years later he's still alive!
No one on earth will EVER know the impact these 2 amazing people have had and continue to have!

SO it's JUNE 5th - and I'd like to say - I LOVE you guys and I couldn't be prouder!
Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!