My 6 year old was flipping through my wedding album this morning when she stopped on a picture of me with my father.\u00a0 She studied his smiling face for a long while, a face she doesn\u2019t know. I held my breath for a moment, knowing what was coming next.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs this your dad, mom?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, dear, it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWas he in the war?\u201d\u00a0 (Her Opa was in Vietnam, her great grandfathers in WWII. )<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, honey, he was.\u00a0 He was a pilot in Vietnam.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh\u2026is that how he died?\u201d\u00a0 She looked at me with these sad eyes, ready to mourn for her dead grandfather.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, then where is he?\u201d\u00a0 I hate this question.\u00a0 They all ask it.\u00a0 They all wonder why they have a grandfather they\u2019ve never met.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad decided that he didn\u2019t want to be married to your Grandma any longer, so they got a divorce.\u00a0 Then he fell in love and married another lady.\u00a0 She already had children, and he decided to be a part of her family instead.\u00a0 He\u2019s still alive; he\u2019s just with his new family.\u201d<\/p>\n
She sat for a moment and thought of this.\u00a0 I sat and thought of all the things I wasn\u2019t saying: the hurt feelings, the tears, the drama of the past, the pain\u2026.and I waited.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe must be a really beautiful and nice lady if he chose her instead of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeah\u2026\u2026must be.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My 6 year old was flipping through my wedding album this morning when she stopped on a picture of me with my father.\u00a0 She studied his smiling face for a long while, a face she doesn\u2019t know. I held my breath for a moment, knowing what was coming next. \u201cIs this your dad, mom?\u201d \u201cYes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n