I have been asked, on many occasions, how I keep my sense of humor.

Living a life such as mine, many people might have had trouble. I haven't had the worst life ever, by any means. Much worse stories have have been told, throughout all of history. Mine, though, is my own, and here is a part of it.

This time of year blows. Most people, they love this time of year. The beginning of summer, warm weather, end of school, lots of fun. Me? I get depressed.

My mother was born June 14th, 1951. Yeah, that date just passed. She would have been 60 this year. I say "would have," because she died on November 3rd, 1997, at all of 46 years old. Taken by breast cancer after only a four year battle, the odds were against her. She got it at a young age. She discovered it when it was in Stage Four. She went into remission after the first round of chemo and radiation, but it came back with a vengence, all over her body, in the end. The doctors told us (and I, all of fifteen years old.) that there were so many tumors in her brain they did not even bother to count them. She went insane in the end, quite literally. Or maybe she was the most clear she'd even been in her life, who knows. She said she talked to God, and he spoke back to her. Funny, because she had never believed in God. I don't believe she was an athiest, I think she was like me. Just unable to accept that anyone knew what the fuck they were talking about.

My mother was cool. She was 16 years old in The Summer Of Love, graduated and turned 18 in 1969. She was a hippie. She did a lot of drugs. She had 6 kids. Four before me, then she divorced their father and married mine. She had one kid after me, whom she gave up for adoption. I found my sister on MySpace a few years back. I'll tell the story some day. And... she did a lot of drugs. She kind of always did, while she was pregnant, raising kids, dying. She wanted to be more a friend to me than a mother. This was a problem because, well, I had my own personality. My mother? Was not the type of person I was friends with. So we didn't get along so well. I loved her, and I was devestated when she died, and I still miss her, every single day. I've even forgiven all of the things she did to me in my childhood. I mean, I wouldn't be who I am if she hadn't. But really - having me sleep in the backseat of the car whe I'm 6 while you and your boyfriend go get drunk in the bar? Those were different times, I suppose. It took becoming a mother myself to forgive my mother her sins. Not because I understand them, but because I simply wish I had her here, with me, helping me be a mom.

My father, on the other hand, was only 28 when he died. The age I am now. I have officially lived longer than my own father already. I was 4 when he passed. Old enough to understand, old enough to miss him, and old enough that it still devestates me. He was ill as a teenager, and the illness caused kidney damage. The kidney damage went on and on - he even got a new one from his mother, my Grandmother. That failed too. All the kidney failure also caused his heart to fail. In 1987, when he died, he was to be one of the first in the nation to recieve a simultanious heart-and-kidney transplant. He died near the top of the list.

My father was also cool, and a lady killer. He was married 2 times before he met my mother, and was only 23 when he met her. He had another kid before me, my brother, whom I've never met. But guess what? He found me on MySpace a few years ago. (Yeah. That's gonna be a hell of a story when I tell it.) Anyway, from what I know about my father, I got his personality. He loved music and comedy, loved to joke and laugh, loved everyone and everything and life, even though he started dying when he was a teenager. He gave and gave and gave, and never expected anything back. In the end, a few people called him selfish, because he stopped sticking to his strict diet, stopped not doing all those things that were supposed to keep him "alive." But really, there is a huge difference between being alive and living, and my father chose to live. Perhaps that shortened his life a little, but probably not much, and he died a happy man.

So this time of year, this time when Flag Day, also known as my mother's birthday, and Fathers Day manage to be REALLY FUCKING CLOSE TOGETHER, I get a little bummed out. I think a lot about my own mortality when I think about my parents. They lived to an average age of 37, so that is when I expect to die. I've lived longer than my father, but damned if I don't have kidney problems. I have no money, I just wish I had someone whose doorstep I could show up on with my little family and KNOW we would have a roof over our heads and food in our belly's.

I don't think like this all the time. In fact, very rarely. Just when the calender forces me to.

Dude. Fuck calenders.

1. I am going to focus on my husband this fathers day, and not what I do not have
2. Even without your mother, there are plenty of Mother-Figures out there.
3. A baby is born with a need to be loved and never outgrows it. -Frank A. Clark

This was my moms favorite song.