THE NARRATIVE ARC

My Mom and Dad Were Born 28 Years Apart on the Same Day

It was the 1970s, after all

Mom and Dad, sometime in the early 1970s, photo courtesy of author

Today, Dad would have been 100 years old and my mom would have been 72.

While it has been 17 years since I lost my father, this is the first year without my mom.

One could say I actually “lost” my father when I turned 18, the year I became sexually active.

From what I was told, my parents’ divorce was not an amicable one. My mom had an affair and I was an only child. A custody battle ensued. My father tried to prove her an unfit mother. But as I grew, and with the way memory softens life’s sharp edges, we were always able to find a happy medium for navigating our lives together.

Sometimes I imagine a time before I was born, my parents all dolled up in 1970s regalia, my dad with his signature thick, silver hair, complete with sideburns, and my mom, all green eyes, tanned skin and bleach-blond bouffant, in a sexy polyester halter dress. They are speeding across southern Florida on Alligator Alley in my dad’s silver Mercedes SL convertible, listening to Santana on the way to Hialeah or Gulfstream to watch his horse hopefully win that race.

My dad developed a love of horse racing when he was a young medical school student in…