Ode to the Under-Parented

I've hemmed and hawed about sharing this, it's a raw, jagged wound, but it is in the heaviest of hurts we can help others transmute the most pain.

I received a text that Bill died and his funeral was happening in western Washington.

I only know one "Bill," my uncle, who happens to live in western Washington.

I didn't recognize the number, and while I was prepared to gather my things and go there to support my aunt Jana, whom I deeply care for and respect, I needed to confirm that it was really my uncle Bill and not a wrong number.

It felt crass to reply to the text, "Who is this?" so I left a voicemail for my Dad. He's always very hard to reach.

Thinking on how he'd told me he doesn't get voicemails often, I followed up with a text.

He replied immediately that Bill was fine, then invited me to my aunt's funeral happening next Friday.

Family members from all over the country, he said, were planning to make it to the mini reunion happening after.

I started to cry. He'll never know how often I do that, longing for a father who sees me, who cares about me, who, when he remarries, doesn't call me to say, "It's time we start leading our own lives."

You see, it wasn't about the funeral, though I loved my aunt and would love to celebrate her.

And the longing I feel for the family he'll be spending time with causes a physical pain in me.

I cried because, as he told me in that text, 21 people had a chance to respond and make travel arrangements before he thought to ask his only child.

And the fact is, he wouldn't have asked if I hadn't reached out to him first.

Because he truly meant it when he said, "It's time we start leading our own lives."

All my life, I just wanted family. When my grandmother died when I was 17, so too did the get togethers I grew up relishing and the only sense of belonging I ever carried.

I'm fighting back tears writing this, days later. Tears for what I'll never have, tears for his family who will notice my absence and think less of me for it.

But another truth emerges.

In *his* absence, in the absence of any family to support me, I created the very things I lacked.

I built a life, I broke the generational chains, I *saw* my kids and I showed up for them no matter how hard my own life was. Silent screaming at the sky, I gave comfort when I had none to give, because no child should ever, EVER feel like they don't matter.

And now I'm mature enough to realize that attaching the label "family" to someone doesn't equal obligation to endure more pain.

A few years ago, the little girl me who never stopped hurting and longing for a father would have gone, would have endured the discomfort of knowing how meaningless it all was, would have watched with a broken heart while he celebrated the family he chose, one he never welcomed me into, for reasons I have never understood.

But the me I am becoming now does not equate proximity to relationship.
She doesn't need someone else to give her the love she is capable of herself.
She doesn't need the approval of someone who has never once offered it.

I write this for two reasons:

1. To share my side, because I get messages saying, "Don't you know your Dad loves you?" and the answer is, I don't doubt there's an approximation of love there, but people look entirely different depending on your perspective and as the "daughter who has it all," I promise I would have given up every material thing I ever had to actually *feel* that love. I remember thinking that in my pre-teens, how I'd trade it all for real love while everyone gushed about how "lucky" I was.

2. To encourage people who share similar struggles. The absence of loving parents in my life was a gaping wound that caused me immense pain my entire first 40 years. When I focused on seeing to my own needs, on loving myself instead of waiting for someone else to do it, life changed dramatically. It doesn't make the pain go away, but you grow alongside it, eventually separate from it. And like a spiral, the lesson keeps coming back around, the pain still sneaks up, but each time it does, there's a whole lot of maturity and perspective gained between each cycle.

I want you to know that you will struggle, that people will hurt you in ways unimaginable, but through it all:

You alone are enough. You are everything you'll ever need. And you, when living life from that perspective, will find everything you ever want, too.

I pray that for us all. ❤