This was my Commemorative Speech from my college public speaking class. Some of it may be a "little" exaggerated, but for the most part it really hits on what life in the Murdoch household was like!
Mom & Dad, every day should be Mother's & Father's day for the hell you have lived through having us kids! Love you both!
My Parents
My Parents! Mom and Dad! Who are they? I am really not sure. I have known them for 20 years and I still have not figured them out. I watched them raise five kids, including myself, and am still watching them raise another. I am really surprised they are still alive. After all, we have put them through hell more than a dozen times and have given them plenty of opportunities to drop dead from a heart attack. My parents have probably seen more stationary from schools than the schools knew they had. They received notices for detentions, suspensions, progress reports, and letters from teachers. So, they scolded us, cursed us, grounded us, starved us, took the car away from us and have even forbidden us to breathe. Nothing worked. Yet, they never gave us away. They watched us terrorize their home, put holes in the walls; more holes than anyone could ever count, break each others bones, cut each others hair and on a good day they would sit back and watch the five of us in a pile screaming and punching, trying to hurt whoever got in the way. Sometimes even drawing blood. Yet, Mom and Dad, stood by us through everything. They gave us money when we were broke and still do. They were there through all our troubles, boyfriends, girlfriends, our first encounter with alcohol, smoking, and drugs. Through broken friendships, problems at school and even death. They always had a word of advice, which of course, we never listened to. Oh, by the way, no matter what my parents say they are not always right! Sometimes I really wonder if they are even human at all!
Our parents brought us into this world and we all knew they could have taken us out of it! I am the only girl out of five kids, and the only normal one! I was not the worst of us kids, but I did my share of not so smart things. I started the bathroom garbage on fire and I crashed the snowmobile into the neighbors house. Fortunately, we can now sit back and laugh at the holes in the walls, the fire, the crash, and the time Rich threw Dave into the bathtub and busted the tile surround down. Yes, all of us lived through this!
Mom and Dad even took us on vacations, believe it or not! Long drives in the station wagon with five kids fighting in the back. We went on camping trips to a place called nowhere! You know, "Where we going Dad?" "Nowhere! Now leave me alone!" You never know what could happen on a trip like this, and if it could happen, it did. Bee stings, poison ivy, scraped knee, raccoons stealing food out of the coolers, sunburns, stepping on a rock, the gutsy little fish nibbling on you while you were swimming, the boat overturning and so much more! The soft-shell turtle that Dad thought was a log and scaring each other with fish heads! Hard to believe they put up with us through all of this and still took us camping again! Of course, we never thought us kids would come back from these trips alive!
We were always crying because of this or that; my new box of crayolas that melted all over the dash of the car, a broke toy, or because of a bump on the head. There was always those stormy nights when we fit seven people in my parents bed and of course those agonizing screams from a bad dream or a monster under the bed! Tears were shed for everything, big or little, as long as it made Mom and Dad miserable. Talk about making them miserable, I must not forget the time our gerbil got out of the cage and made its way to our parents bed! I won't get into details, but you can imagine what happened after that. It all seams unreal that they never took us out back into the woods and shot every one of us!
They took care of us when we were sick, with only one complaint: "Quit throwing up, I'm running out of towels." We were always too scared to get up and run to the bathroom and even if we did, we never made it. They were even there through the five of us having chicken pox!
You know those little phases that everyone goes through when they are growing up? Well, my parents put up with those too. One night after a long confidential meeting in their bedroom, Rich and Dave announced to Mom and Dad they were running away. Mom bundled them up because it was the dead of winter, and sent them on their way. Needless to say, it was dark and they came back in a hurry asking for a ride. After minutes of begging and getting no where, they decided to stay until morning. Mom said it was now or never. So, life in the Murdoch house went on as always!
My parents have seen it all! They are still here, hopefully to see a whole lot more. I guess they'll always be raising us kids in their own little way. Teaching us right from wrong and all of life's little mysteries. One day they'll be sitting back laughing as we try to do the same with our kids. They always said "Wait until you have kids, you'll see!" Of course, we all swore our kids would be angels, unlike the terrors we were, and if they weren't then they would be spending an awful lot of time at Grandma & Grandpa's house! Some day we will all learn exactly what they meant!
So the question remains; Who are my parents? I still haven't figured it out! Superhuman? Maybe not, but I do know that they are terrific parents that really love us a lot!
I should note, that after I got married they up and left for Arizona, something we were all pretty shocked by! Our kids ARE all terrors and they really don't get to spend nearly enough time with Grammie & Papa! :) I'm sure they are having a good laugh at our expense!
