Lucky...or maybe not.

*Some of this post is based purely on memories, not the facts*

I just learned that a dear friend of mine's Mom, is having a biopsy of a very small "spot" that was found on a routine mammogram. This Mom has no history in her family of breast cancer and it was caught early so the odds are very favorable that it is nothing. But please pray anyway.

However, as news like this always does, if got me thinking. As many of you know, I lost my Dad very early in my life to a brain tumor. So I had to deal, as a young chid, with losing my Dad, and if I were completely honest with myself, I don't think I really grieved completely or even mourned correctly.

I remember my Mom sending me to a therapist/counselor who was (as I remember him) a creepy old man. Most likely a middle aged man with a beard and a sweater vest and glasses. Yes, that is how I remember him, it was the 80's after all; oh and he has a quiet toned creepy voice. Anyways, did he (or my Mom for that matter) think I was  really going to talk to him about my Dad dying? I barely understood what had happened myself, how was I to pour my feelings out to him? I am sure he was a pediatric therapist but still. Needless to say, I think I only went to see him once or twice, at least that is how I remember it.

My parents separated when I was young, very young; maybe Kindergarten age. I remember my Mom taking me on the ferry to see him on weekends in Seattle so I wasn't old enough to go alone yet, or maybe she went to make sure he didn't have some crazy woman there with him waiting for me. He then moved to Alaska for a few years, at least I think that was the order it happened. I never saw him then. He would send me audio tapes that after he died I remember playing frequently until the cassette player ate my last one. I remember that day vividly, it was while I was living in Oregon. I sobbed. It was the last time I heard his voice. :(  I remember he came back to Seattle when he found out he had the tumor. He stayed there until he died. Sadly, in my 10 or so years he was alive I hardly saw him let alone got to know him. I know while I has a baby he was there and most likely was a great Dad, but I have no memories of that. At all.

Does this make me lucky? In the sense that I did have a parent die but I was so young and barely had much of a relationship with him to really know what losing a parent is like.  I hear about people losing a parent from cancer or by a tragic accident and assume I can empathize, but can I? Most of them knew that parent. Had a relationship with them. My Dad, moved to Seattle then Alaska. Sure I saw him and spent time with him, heck, he took me to Disneyland, twice (I think) in those short years. But I barely remember him.

Maybe it makes me unlucky because I lost him so soon and did not get to have a relationship with him while all these other people did. I know that it makes me angry when I hear about it. How their parent died and how sad it is. A part of me wants to angrily say, "But at least you knew them and grew up with them. You're lucky enough to not know what its like to not have one.  You were/are lucky enough to have many memories with them..." But I don't, because that is so incredibly insensitive and just not right.

I wonder just how much could I possibly understand what they were/are going through. Was I lucky to have lost my Dad so young so maybe, just maybe, my pain of losing him isn't or wasn't so intense?  Because of losing so early on, my whole like I have feared losing my Mom. It is and has been my biggest fear. Sure I have my Step-Dad but if you know me, really know me, it just isn't the same.

What I do know is that there is no luck in losing a parent; none what so ever. Losing a parent is losing a parent, no matter how or when.