Dead Dads Club

I am a part of this club! I am quite sure many of you understand what that means. For those of you who prefer straight talk; it just means that I am among the many who have lost their Dads.

I caught this phrase yesterday in a TV series (Grey's Anatomy) I was watching. In this story, a guy loses his father to cancer and then a friend tries to break the ice by saying, 'Welcome to the Dead Dads Club'. I quite liked the way she said it. In fact, what she said next got me thinking more about the topic. The guy who had just lost his father says, 'I don't know a world that does not have my father in it!'. The friend replies, 'It isn't very different!'. How true?! The world isn't different because my father is not in it, but, I am different because my father is not in it.

I am sure many of you who are fortunate enough to have both your parents would probably find it difficult to understand this. Whereas, for many like me who lost his/her father when when he/she was just a year old (or more) this probably would make perfect sense. However, let me make this very clear. I am not trying to say that I had a miserable childhood because my Dad was not there or because my Mom did not do enough. In fact, I never thought too much about not having a Dad until a few years ago. As I age and probe life more, I seem to think much about how all sorts of things influence the person you are or you are trying to be.

The saying that a coin has two sides is true here as well. Not having someone in your life has both pros and cons. For instance, having a Dad would have given me another perspective of life, one different from my Mom's. Having a Dad would have made me understand my personality traits better, because now I don't even know why I act or think in certain ways that my Mom would never do. However, on the up side, not having a Dad has made me learn the virtues of courage, strength and the never-give-up attitude from my Mom who has made us (my sister and I) good human beings. Not having a Dad has made me realize how important it is not to take people who are there for me for granted. Think about it! I don't know what it means to call someone 'DAD', whereas there are millions who don't give a second thought to that word. So, I've come to understand, as always, that there is a reason behind everything that happens in one's life. The key thing is to learn to grasp life from different angles and then accept change in a way that is salubrious to your soul.

Picture courtesy: http://pbskids.org/arthur/friends/dad/images/dad_coloring.gif