Day Four: My Parents

Momma (mah-muh) and daddy (deh-dee). Glenda Hewitt and Elwyn Henry. Fowler.

I’m extremely blessed to have two parents that have kept my last name throughout my entire lifetime. Divorce is an ever-present threat to the happy evolution of teenagers raised in broken homes. Alcohol abuse, drug addictions, infidelity, domestic violence – these are the all too common stories of contemporary families. I am so blessed that I’ve never had to live through anything so traumatic.

My mom is a marshmellow. My brother and I learned this at a young age and roasted it on an open fire for as long as we could. She’s loving, worrisome, and has a fantastically dry sense of humor. My musical talents came from her genes – she was always being asked to sing specials in church growing up, and still today she has a passion for singing in her church choir. She was the one I always would expect to say yes. Or if she didn’t say yes first, I felt confident I could plea and argue logic until she caved or compromised. She’s always encouraged me and motivated me to succeed and do great things.

My dad is a very devout, principled man. I’ve inherited a number of his personality traits, but almost none the same as my mom’s. From my dad I’ve enjoyed a strong moral influence. A deacon at church, he never touches alcohol. His idea of profanity is saying “that team sucks” or “this is bullcrap”. He’s a good ol’ country boy whose vocabulary includes awesome words like “reckon,” “yonder,” and when he’s agitated, “I swanee!” My financial frugality is from his steadfast penny pinching, but just like he can’t stop buying things at auctions, I have a weak spot for electronics. God bless him, but the man can’t carry a tune unless he’s whistling. He loves working with his hands, he built the house that my parents now live in, and you can always hear him whistling away while swinging a hammer and punching a nail gun.

I love my parents. They’ve both impacted my character pretty equally. In high school, I never had to call them every hour when I was out with friends. My best friend did have to do this. His parents were ridiculously protective. I only had to say “I’m going over to Justin’s, don’t wait up” and that was it for the night. My parents trusted my brother and I, and I can’t imagine growing up any other way.

However, probably the greatest hurdle we experienced as a family was a lack of communication. There always seemed to be an assumption that one person being given a message or leaving the house would somehow telepathically transmit their knowledge to the rest of the family. “Where’s daddy?” I would ask when I had a question for him. The common answer I heard from my mother was “I have no idea where your father is, he went outside and I haven’t seen him in an hour.” Usually he’d be down the road at the sawmill or lost in the chaos of our backyard. I actually think that communications improved after my brother and I left home for college – that’s when my family purchased our first family-wide cellphones. Once my parents learned how to use them, we started staying in touch pretty regular.

I love you, mom and dad!

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