Teri

          There have been times between my mother and myself that haven't been great. I *know* there were timesI thought I would never talk to her again. I blamed her for a lot of different things that weren't her fault. But she has always been there for me when I needed her, even though we wouldn't talk for a long period of time. To her, It always remained that I was her son, and despite how I felt about her, I was her son and she loved me.
          My father had influenced me in how I wanted to live my life, my morals and values. My mother gave me my passions. Ever since I was little, my mother owned books. Tons and tons of books. My dad had literally built close to 9 different book shelves for her because she just kept on collecting and reading. When I was little, I would wake up at 2 am (super late for 3rd-4th grade) and I would go downstairs to find my mom sitting only with a lamp on, focusing on her book. There were times when she wouldn't notice me till I hit the bottom set of stairs, and she would always ask what I'm doing up. I would crawl up next to her and watch her read. She would never read them to me, at my age they were far too sophisticated to understand. But I would watch her get lost in the book again, gasp at certain parts of the book, and laugh out loud during others. Growing up I never really got INTO reading per se, I've read a few very popular books, and a few that aren't popular. But seeing her get lost into a passage really got me into writing. For those who don't know, I love writing. I love fantasy, everything about it just makes my eyes gloss over and I zone out. I have always wanted to write a book she could gasp or laugh at. To be able to create a world so unique that people just get lost in it would be such a success in my mind.
          The other very similar, but very different, passion is video games. Some of the BEST memories of my mother and I growing up would be playing video games. Some of our favorites were the Final Fantasy series. Mine was VII, hers was VIII, and my brother Jeremy's was IX. It was sort of a competition for us to play, talk about, and debate which game was better. Even after those though, I can still list a dozen games we played together on Playstation and Playstation 2. As an adult we even played World of Warcraft together and other Online Multiplayer games.
         I share her passion with worlds beyond our own. My imagination grew with her passion of reading and I could never thank her enough for it.

“When I was your age, television was called books. And this is a special book. It was the book my father used to read to me when I was sick, and I used to read it to your father. And today I'm gonna read it to you.” - The Princess Bride (1987)
~Just a thought