Life Synopses: Parents and their Importance

Why They Matter

   People say that your parents will be the most important people in your life. Life lessons, personality, outlooks on life, all things you will learn from your parents. And people will generally agree with that statement, but they will likely will never know the real significance of that fact. The few that truly do are those who have been unfortunate enough to have to grow up without a parent, or both. I suppose that in a way that makes me lucky and unlucky at the same time.

   I never got to know my mother. I don't know how old she would be right now, her face other than a few photos that I've seen, hell, I didn't even know her name until a few years ago. The little I have learned is from tidbits of information I've gathered from my other relatives (not that I've asked much) is that she was a nurse at a world renown hospital in the state I lived and continue to. No, she did not leave my father in some cruel selfishness, I've heard she was an amazing person. No, she wasn't the unfortunate victim of a crime, our state's homicides happens to be quite low. In a cruel twist of irony, she fell to gastric cancer, or more commonly known as stomach cancer. I was either lucky or unfortunate to have this happen when I was two years of age, so I remember little to nothing about her, which makes the immediate pain more bearable but at the same time creates this sense of hopelessness in me, for I will never get to know someone who should've been a key figure in my life.

  Of course, my father remarried when I was around five to another women and we moved into her home with her three children who given time, I would almost call them family. People who have ever had step-parents will understand the disconnect I've always felt between my step-mother, the fact that no matter how close you may get, you will never have the same relationship that a genetic parent could have between their child (however I may be wrong and others integrate into being just as much as a family with their step-relatives as peanut butter and jelly in two slices of bread). My step-mother has by all means been a defining figure person in my life, shaping my rational and at times, critical personality and in some fashion, my drive to be as perfect as possible (which is a paradoxical issue of mine in it of itself). But at the same time, she's never been a true parent in my eyes. She's never been someone I could express my problems to. Someone I could cry to when I'm feeling sad or express my joy to when I've accomplished something in my eyes, worth sharing. I've also at times felt as if I've always been treated less than equal to my step-siblings but I suppose that isn't uncommon and is to be expected, it is what mothers do I guess.

  Where my step-mother faltered to be my emotional outlet in life, my father was burdened since I began to understand the world around me with taking upon the role of both father and mother. He has always been the one to teach me to be kind and polite to others, to strive to be as great as I can be. He's been the one to inspire me to push harder than others, to go the extra mile. But at the same time, he's been the one for me to vent my frustrations in life, my sorrows, my joys. He's been the one who I've felt has always understood me and has always been by my side, helping me along the path of life. Not saying that he coddled me, far from it, there have been more than a few instances that he's shown his ability to put me back into line when I've overstepped it. And considering the attributes above, it makes sense why every disappointed look he gave me was so crushing, he has been both my parents rolled into one.

  There have been more than a few times in my life where I, seemingly out of the blue, have begun bawling my eyes out over my mother, this woman who I've never really known. And afterwards the rational part of my brain would always question why I just shed so many tears over someone I don't know (as sad as it is to think about it that way). And now, I've finally reached the conclusion as to why. I cry for three people. I cry for my mother; the woman who lost her life having little say in the matter, for having to leave behind a child and a husband and more than that, a future. The possibility to expand her family, to continue doing something she loved, to grow old with the man she cared for and watch as life passes before her eyes; watching her child(ren) grow, start families of their own and continue the cycle of life. To live happily ever after as the Disney movies would say. I cry for my father; the man who was forced to watch his beloved slowly die without a single thing he could do to stop it. To have to raise a child all on his own for a time and have that child be a constant reminder of the one he lost (as I'd believe my existence to be). And I cry, selfishly, for myself; a child who grew up never hearing the soft and soothing voice of the woman who brought him into this world. Someone who never got to live with both halves of their inherited chromosomes and remember it. And someone who will never know the true feeling of a complete family in their life.

   This was by no means an easy synopsis of the underlying problem in my life to write and writing by no means lacked tears, by the end of this I've probably shed more than a small cup but alas, it cannot be changed. If you will not take away anything from the text above, please, I beg of you, remember these words. Do not take the care your parents have given you for granted, most just want what they believe is best for you and you will miss their words when they're gone. Some of us would kill to have that connection.

-Auf Wiedersehen