Any divorced (or even married) these days say, one or multiple times to himself or to the wide eyed child before him, 'Your mother's a loon, son. That's just how it is.'
But it was a first when my father (the one you all shirk back with fear from) said with a smile, that stopped cracking around the edges the moment I was born, 'Your mother's a little touched in the head, son. What am I saying? She's full one crazy and that why I like her.'
Any kid in the normal (rather boring) kind of family would be deeply mortified by the words that my father was putting out there like we were taking about buying mommy a present (pink and frilly of course) but to me it was just another day as a Gray.
The only thing that stood out in his words was 'like' the word he used for mommy and all of us since the beginning of it all.
It was if saying or thinking 'love' killed one part of him at a time, very slowly so you could see the pain it was causing him.
It didn't matter if it was mother,(who only really says it to me whispering it in the inside my ear, 'I love you, I love you sweetie, so very much.') me or the extended-family of twelve that always seems to be behind us even in the dead of night.
After our 'little talk' it didn't change the way I saw my mother, who with a giggle turned into a child to play with, no for a matter of fact it just made me love her (and her damaged brain, that I may have gotten) even more.
The day that the world became mine (from a child to a villain in a matter of years and the warm arms of the craziest mother around) was a day for joy and sorrow, I found that for a moment while watching the black skies that it could almost fit into my open palm
My father watched me step into his shoes with so much ease that he said the one word that my mothers and my ears have been waiting years for.
"I'm so proud of you, son. I love both you and your mother."
"I love you too, dad."