Super mom

Jenny still hadn't looked up from the covers she was staring at, as she started telling the story surrounding her father. "Before I tell you this, I want you to know that my father has never been in my life and he wasn't what I would call a kind man. I wasn't even a year old when my mother left him, so I don't know much, but I will tell you a bit of what I do know. Though I don't really want to get into the specifics, you should at least know that he was someone who hadn't treated my mother and my older brothers well. He was a man with a temper and only revealed that side of him after my mother had already been married to him and had gotten pregnant with their first child. My mother is, as you know by now, a loving person and she stuck by him with his promises of change. They had their ups and downs and after about seven years of marriage, my mother found out he had a whole other family aside from us. This was when she was around eight months pregnant with me.

When I was born and she found out I was a girl, she decided that she didn't want me to grow up in an environment like that, nor with a role model like herself. At least not how she was at that point in her life. She wanted me to see how strong a woman can be, and she wanted me to have a better life than she had. So, when I was about a month old, she packed her bags and left with me and my brothers. She moved to another country with her three small children and a new-born, without knowing the language and without a penny to her name. She didn't tell him where we were, and she had taken nothing from their marital home, other than the clothes on our backs. After we had settled in, she told him our home number, so that he could stay in touch with his children. My contact with him was always awkward and short. To me he was a stranger and I simply didn't know what I should say to him. At a certain point I started dreading the moment I saw that number appear on the phone display. By the time I was old enough to care, he had already passed away. And I guess that is all I can say about the man who fathered me."

Jason had listened to Jenny talk with anger and sadness. Though her voice was calm as she told him this story, he could feel the hurt behind her words. He couldn't believe someone could treat a woman like Mary like that. He also couldn't believe how cheerful Jenny was, with a story like that hanging over her head. How cheerful all of them were. The respect he gained for Jenny's mother at that moment was tremendous. For her to be able to raise four children so well on her own, with no help from friends or family and while working to provide for her children, was simply amazing. It was something many with fewer children, fewer challenges in life and with a supportive spouse weren't able to achieve a lot of the time. Mary was an amazing woman in his eyes, and he imagined Jenny wouldn't fare much worse if she were put in a similar situation. With her stubborn side, she might have done even better. Taking all the best qualities from her mother. He decided that there wasn't really anything he could say at that moment. All he did instead was pull Jenny's head against his chest and place a kiss on the top of her head as he said, "Thank you for telling me that."

Much like Jason with his story about his past, Jenny had come to terms with her story. Her mother and brothers had suffered the most in that story, "all" she had to do was grow up without a father. Other than that, she had grown up in a loving home with a mother who worked her hardest to fill the role of a father and a mother, and in many aspects succeeded in doing so. So, in her eyes she hadn't missed out on a father, she had gained a super mom. She smiled gently as she rubbed Jason's lower arm in acknowledgement of his words. She too didn't feel pity for herself and would never want anyone to do so either. She always told others that you can't miss what you never had, so she didn't really miss her father not being in her life. Sure there were moments that she looked at a perfect little family and had to swallow away the thought that she would never be able to experience that, but those moments were always short lived and would quickly be drowned out by the love she was given by her mother. That was why no one could ever take her place in Jenny's heart or rival her. She had given up everything to be able to give her and her brothers a good life and to not have them feel like they were missing a father growing up. That alone was something she could never repay her for. So all Jenny could do was shower her mother with love in return.

Their outlook on life, the past and their incomplete childhoods, were partly the reason Jenny and Jason were able to get along so well and were able to understand each other so well. They both looked at the past as something that had formed them to become the people they were today. It was also the reason they didn't shy away from their past, but allowed it to make them stronger and make them see what it was they wanted for their lives. It made them capable of giving more love than a normal person could and sacrifice more than a normal person could, as long as the other person was deserving. Now that they had found that person, they were slowly blossoming into even more incredible people than they already were and their long wait for that right person had finally started to pay off.