The difference between my mom and my dad

I love my mom. She is a great person—funny, generous, and smart.

I love my dad. He is a great person too—witty, intelligent, and kind.  

Mom and Dad were alike in the important things—shared beliefs and values; hard workers; loving; good parents; great people. But they were also very different from each other. Here are a couple of illustrations for you:

This picture was taken of Mom at work,
about ten years before this story happened.

1.  Bruce and I started dating about a year after I got my driver's license. He was surprised that I couldn't drive a standard transmission car. Well, I'd never had to drive one; I always drove my mom's automatic. But when he said he'd teach me, I thought it would be pretty cool to learn, to have my boyfriend teach me, and to be the only girl in my family who drove a stick-shift.

So Bruce taught me to drive a stick, mostly in my dad's Ford Ranger, and I did really well! So well, in fact, that I was confident to drive it all by myself one day. I don't remember where my mom's Subaru was for the day—maybe out for a repair, maybe my dad had it; I don't know. But one afternoon only the truck was around, and I wanted to go hang out with Bruce at his house for a while. So I told Paul, that I could get Mom from work that evening if I could take the truck over to Bruce's house. (Paul was supposed to pick Mom up.) And I drove that truck right on over to go see Bruce. Perfectly smooth. No jerking starts or stops, just smooth sailing all the way there. Bruce was proud of me! Then, just before 5:00 I drove over to my mom's office to pick her up; again, it was a smooth ride. I felt pretty awesome. And wouldn't Mom be surprised to see that I had come to get her in the truck all by myself?

Oh, she was surprised all right! Not surprised like, "Wow! Look at you, driving the truck!" but more like, "What in the world are you doing driving Dad's truck?!" and, "I hope we make it home in one piece!"

Well, I was instantly nervous. And it was rush hour, stop and go traffic all the way home. And I killed that darn truck every time I had to stop, and had a hard time starting it up again every single time, and Mom kept up an anxious, worried scolding the entire drive. To make things worse, our bishop had been behind us the entire way, and that weekend he laughingly told my mom that he was sure whoever was driving that truck had stripped all the gears. Which she then told me as proof that I should not be driving the truck. And I never did again.

This picture was probably taken pretty close
to the time these stories took place.

2.  On the day I registered for my senior year in high school—while I was at the school, actually—my dad had driven the motorcycle to work and was in an accident. He broke his ankle pretty badly. I don't remember if he just had to stay home for a long time, or if he was just home this day, or what. But anyway Dad was home, and I was home (hm... it must have been before school actually started back up, then)... and he needed to stop at his workplace for something. I had driven Mom to work (in the automatic transmission Subaru), so Dad asked me to take him to work, and I did, and of course made it there without incident.

On the way back home we were driving down the freeway, which was wide open and empty... except for the car that was directly in my blind spot. So we're flying along at 55mph, Dad's reclined in the passenger seat, and I need to move left so that I won't be in the exit lane. And I didn't see the one. single. other car on the entire freeway for miles. Now, this guy could have moved into the next lane over as he honked his horn at me, and he could have flipped me off, and sworn at me, but he didn't. He just laid on his horn and stayed right where he was. I, on the other hand, had a near heart-attack, and over-corrected, yanking the steering wheel hard to the right. And as I'm racing toward the freeway barrier, I freak out again and yank the wheel hard to the left, making a swooping, speeding arc toward the left barrier. Once again I pull the wheel to the right, braking this time, and shrieking out my best horror-movie, blood-curdling, "we're about to die" scream as we come to a stop about a foot away from the right-side barrier. And after a second, Dad looks over at me and calmly says, "Did that scare you?"

And that is the difference between my mom and my dad. ♥