My dad was in town this week because his sister is seriously ill.  Thankfully, it looks like she will make a full, but very slow, recovery.  He being here and her being sick got me thinking about family.  I really try to live without regret...I mean really what's the point, I can't change anything.  I try to learn and move on.  But when it comes to my dad and his family I have regrets, and unfortunately they are from decisions that were totally out of my control.  There really is no blame to be placed, everyone did what they thought was best, but lives were affected.

I know I have talked a little on here about my relationship with my dad, but let me give you a brief history.  My parents were divorced before my first birthday.  I have a few memories with my dad between then and the age of 9.  When I was nine my step-father adopted me and I didn't see my dad again until I was graduating from high school.  I accidently ran into him while leaving and it was very much a shock.  I didn't see him again until I was 24 when I decided it was time to have a relationship.

There's 15 years where I had absolutely no contact with him.  Where my heart did a great job of protecting me by not letting me think of him.  I still remember that last day I saw him when I was 9.  I thought he was going to pick me up from school at lunch.  He showed up, but so did my mom and I ended up going home with my mom, and that was it, he was no longer my dad.  I really don't think my 9 year old mind understood all that was going on, but it knew enough to not dwell on the details or the what if's.

Fast forward to today and we have a relationship and I am terribly thankful for it.  I like having him in my life.  It's been hard to adjust my vision of a dad to what our relationship is.  But I'll take it, it's much better than nothing.  There just came a time for all the anger and unforgiveness to go away.  It really wasn't doing me any good.  And I can't judge the decisions he made when he was young or his motive for doing them.  I have to remember that he too missed out on those 15 years.  He missed basketball games and band concerts, he didn't get to walk me down the aisle, he just missed out on the awesome kid that I was!!!

But I am for some reason just now realizing how much I missed out on those 15 years...cousins, aunts, grandmother.  My mom is an only child so I had NO cousins growing up.  It was just us.  My dad has 3 sisters and 1 brother, all who had children.  I know none of them.  I have a memory of a few and am friends with one on facebeook,  but that's it.  When I hear stories of Josh and his cousins it really makes me think how different life might have been.  Cousins is one of the main reasons we wanted to move back to amarillo.  I wanted Kai to have his cousin in his life, I guess maybe because I didn't get to.

And then there is my father's mom.  There was a post recently on facebook about her.  She died 4 years ago.  My cousin and aunts were talking about what a good mother/grandmother she was.  It made me sad.  It made me wonder what memories we could have made together.  I didn't know her.  I got to see her one time a few years ago, but it wasn't the same as when I was little...i didn't know her. 

I am so thankful that God allowed us to move back to Amarillo.  It was a deep desire of mine to have kai be around his family.  So I will live vicariously through my son, making sure he has a wonderful relationship with ALL his grandparents and cousins.