The world through my American eyes

I would like to take you all on an amazing journey but to do that we really should start from the beginning of it all.

Mom and dad were divorced when I was realy young and since my mother is Swedish she moved back to Sweden. I was just 4-5 when we came here and my American family where far, far away. We called grandma Irene and Aunt Chris on christmas but that was about all. My dad was nowhere to find for many years (I never did ask you about that did I old guy? No pressure but one of these days I'm going to ask you more about the lost years. OK?).

Anyway, through out the years contacts with grandma became more and more rare (entirely due to Swedish laziness or maybe the Parker gene of not staying in touch with people).

Most of my memories, or who am I kidding, all of them from the US years are planted to say. Not that the stories where bad or even wrong I just don't remember any of them by myself. My first recollections are from the first swedish year and onwards. My mom told me such amazing things about the people I'd never met so somehow most of them became like characters in an great book. You get to know them without ever meeting then for real.

So let's go on with the story. My mom never spoke badly of my dad or so, but as I was growing up he was always missing and the child in me really wanted to know why his father had abandoned him (sorry if it hurts to read dad, but I really missed having a father in my younger years). As time went by I actually started to dislike my father for not being there for me.

Well I grew older and at 18 I became a father of my own. People told me I was to young and they where probably right but I wouldn't have changed it for the World, Nathalie was and still is one of the true joys of my life. Somewhere between 18 and 20-ish I believe my father sent me a letter and at first I was thrilled but then the feelings from when I was younger catched up. Why did he have to wait 14-15 years to contact me etc etc. The feelings really tortured me and the sadness of it all won that time.

Anyway I decided that before my 25th birthday I would tell him he had became a grandfather. And that was that.

One day before my self appointed 'deadline' my answering machine was full with confused calls. Someone was trying to figure out if the people on the machine where the ones he wanted to reach. It was dad who somehow found my number and had been trying to call throughout the day (I'm not sure if he realized that we're 6-7 hours ahead over here or not) =P

Contact was made and we sent letters back and forth and called eachother a couple of times every month for a while. My ex girlfriend, me and Nathalie went over to visit some months after.

We spent a week visiting dad and had the chance to spend time with grandpa and grandma, auntie Chris and cousin Sarah. This was truley one of the most awesome weeks of my entire life. Nathalie was only 6 or 7 so she and her grandpa and communicated with okidokies and she and Sarah her watched The Lion King and imitated Rafiki. Truly amazing.

As time went by the not keeping in touch part of being a Parker kicked in and we started to drift further apart again. A letter here, answered a year later and so it went on. I'm sorry to say that I also neglected to keep in touch so it's not just my dads fault I'm just as much to blame. The only one who has been trying to keep in touch regularly is grandma Irene.

So this was some of the background pieces. Did you manage to stay with me this far? Soon the story will continue.

Im going to end this part of the Journey with a song that started in me headphones as I walked in to my officebuilding this morning. It's an awesome band, with an almost as amazing story as the one I'm telling you.