How much I loved my Mum and Dad

I came across something I wrote about my Mum and Dad in June 2012 to a friend of mine. What I wrote then is still what I feel now so I’m happy to share it.

I loved my mum and dad. Not all teenagers would say that but I really did love them so much. It was like some utter nightmare when they had to leave me. They were both science teachers but they never worked in the same school. They were both Head of Science so we were fairly well off. They met when they were on their PGCE course and got they got married when the course finished. They always encouraged me with my athletics and it we were running late I used to get changed in the back of the car as were drove along with dad under strict instructions not to look in the mirror! They were always interested in me and me in them and so we had lots of happy shared times together.

Mum was tall and slim (5ft 10 in her 20's) and dad taller still at 6ft 2 which explains the way I look. I know now that they loved each other very much and it would have been so horrible for one to have died and the other survived

Mum had me quite late in life (35) and had such a terrible time while she was pregnant that she said "never again". That is why I am their only child.  Me being so late was a bit strange because Nan had my mum and aunt very young (she was still in her teens). Given what happened I don't know if it was a good thing or not I was an only child. I think we would have been separated - Nan and Granddad moaned at having just me stay so having two of us wouldn't have happened. But I would have had somebody to share the pain.

Mum and dad didn't have many friends (they were a bit nerdy) but the ones they did have were very close. I have always been cross and hurt that apart from coming to the funeral almost none of these friends have ever been in touch with me. Not even a card at Christmas.

We used to go on holiday every summer. I can remember Florida, Cyprus and Malta best of all. We used to do a mixture of cultural and fun things and they were good times. I can remember going topless in Cyprus - because mum was brave enough to I did to. Neither of us had very much to show!

Mum and dad were very progressive and sensible about things like periods. When I started, I was 11, it was all very low key and non-stressful. I was quite OK about telling them both that I had needed to use the supplies kept in the bathroom cabinet. She, a bit later (14?), talked my through how to explore my own body. It was just taken for granted it was something daughters should be taught. When I was 16 all three of us talked a lot about relationships. How sex was for both parties and all sorts like that. I'm so very proud of my mum and dad for teaching me these things!

I don't dream about mum and dad that much which is quite sad. The only one I can remember, I think I have had it 3 times now, happens in a brilliantly lit room, rather like a hospital waiting room, with nothing in the room except 3 chairs around an oval table. Mum and dad are standing on one side of the table and I am on the other but no matter how fast I ran they are on always on the other side to me. Although they know I was at university they still ask me all sorts of questions about what had happened to me since they had died. In the middle of the conversation they just walk over to one of the doors, wave goodbye and leave me behind. It isn't a happy dream.

Mum and Dad wouldn't be pleased at how Nan and Granddad treated me. Mum and Dad never spanked me but I wasn't a naughty girl either so it was easy all round. I didn't have the terrible teens. But Mum and Dad wouldn't be pleased with me that I sometimes seemed happy and cheerful to outsiders when I was actually being beaten, slapped and deprived of food. "You should have spoken up" is what they would have said.