The Adventures of Captain Imperfecto : Mother's Day Take 2

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Mother's Day Take 2

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Captain Imperfecto and Mimie

May 12th, 2013

When my kids lost their mother a year ago, I thought to myself - How the hell am I going to do this?

Where would I find someone to help me respectably raise my sons. Someone who would love them as much as I love them. Who could I turn to for answers to my questions? God, I'm going to fail miserably.

I couldn't feel sorry for myself for long. After all, the boys needed diaper changes, clothing, and food. They required me to provide for them because they wouldn't do it themselves. I decided to find some help from my family to help guide me in the ways of a parent.

But that help never came. I learned quickly that I would have to learn as I went and use the tools I had gained by helping with the kids with my wife, Mimie. But I knew it wasn't going to be easy. After all, she was a well-educated stay-at-home mom. And she had the boys on schedule.

Before she passed away, the boys were fed by 1730 hours (5:30pm to you) and in bed by 1930 hours (7:30 pm). I use military time because that's how streamlined she was with the schedule-making.

In the weeks after her death, it was food when we were hungry and bedtime at whatever time. But I couldn't help it. I was down and felt sorry for myself. I didn't know what the hell to do. I was in shambles, and there wasn't a damn person around to help me figure it out. I was on my own.

Realizing I was on my own, I knew I would have to get some structure going for my boys. After all, kids need structure to grow and build on. And the new foundation would start now. But how would I go about pouring a new foundation? Where would this structure go? I felt so bad that I couldn't be the mother and father the kids needed. I quickly thought about the millions of single parents in the world today.

I am a product of a single parent. My dad had help, though. But if he could raise 4 kids and the countless other single parents I met on the job as a police officer, I could do it too. My boys needed me, and I needed my boys.

I had no choice but to be their dad and their mother. I would discipline them when they were terrible. I would console them when they were sad. I would listen to them when they needed an ear to hear their fears. I would be the one they'd turn to when they needed someone the most. I would be both parents if they so required.

Sadly, though, when I would build the "can do" attitude inside my mind and physically become strong enough to face the world and my reality, my mind would then realize how my boys needed their mom, which the thought of that would send me crashing down into my reality, of my children, being motherless. I would feel crushed and send myself back to square one.

As the months passed, I would tend to my boys the way any parent would do with the basic needs that every human desires. Slowly, the traction began to take hold as we built ourselves up in the direction we could only go up.

A year has passed, and we are spending our second Mother's Day without their mother. And as you can expect, it takes work. Our life is slowly weaving through the ins and outs of the good times and bad times, the good days and bad days, and the fun days and dull days, but I am still consistent in the love I share with them because the love I have is for 2.

I figured out that I knew and loved my wife for 14 years. And that if anyone knew her best, it was me. I know how to love because I loved their mom. And I know how to love like their mom because their mom loved me. So, I knew how to love for 2.

When the boys cry to me because they are hurt or sick, I love them how their mom would love them. Because that's how she loved me when I was down. When the boys want to be showered with joy for their accomplishments, I jump for joy, as would their mom, because she cheered for me with all the joy and love one would when they love someone does.

And so it goes from one Mother's Day to another. As the years turn into another, I wonder how their mother would love them today? And I go with my heart.

Happy Mother's Day, Mimie. Hug our twin daughters, Sophia and Gabriella, for me.

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