The Beginning and End of My 11-Year Relationship With My Father

I found my father on Facebook on September 15, 2009. He responded to a private message I sent asking if he had a relationship with my mother during his time in the Army back in 1979. He responded that he had and immediately accepted me as his son. On June 4, 2021, just one month after I learned that he was suffering from stage-4 lung cancer, he died.

I knew my dad for less than 12 years after spending the first 29 years of my life without him. I will never see him again.

That hurts. A lot.

It hurts because my father never got a chance to be the best dad he could be. He didn’t know that my mother was pregnant with his son after he was deployed to Korea after basic training. My mother didn’t know how to track him down and alleges that the Army wasn’t