Can't miss someone you never had, never knew, never saw

I am one of those many kids who grew up with one parent, my mom. It is not an unusual story, happens to a lot of kids now. There is one question people always seem to ask about those situations: how does it make you feel to be without a father? Now, the formulation of the question may change, but in its base it is always the same.

This is my answer, it may and probably will be different from other answers. Instead of my real father I had another important figure in my life, my grandfather. I didn't consider my moms husband my father, it was my grandpa who was my rock as a child, plus the thing is that you can not miss something you never had, something you never knew was missing.

My biological father left when I was about a year old, turns out he had another family in a different country, a lot of kids there. The back-story is that my father was a tourist from Slovenia, he met my mom, a woman twenty years younger than him, and they hit it off. They were together for a year before my mom got pregnant with me, he stayed with her another year after I was born. Supposedly he wanted to marry my mom, but turns out you can not have two wives in Europe. Wait, what?! That's a shocker.

I have only met my biological father once, when my mom got married to her second husband. We went on a car trip all over Europe and stopped by Slovenia, quick trip to the local police station with my birth certificate and we got an address. I was eight years old so the memories are fuzzy, but the next thing I remember is a small room full of smoke from cigarettes. My moms second husband smoked a lot, but never inside, and definitely not as much as this family.

I was sitting in my ''fathers'' lap and somehow after almost 10 years he still spoke Latvian, my mom always said he was smart and I got my brain from him.

I was not uncomfortable, but I felt like I was with strangers, and I was. I didn't know my two sisters that were there, or my brother, I didn't know my father or his wife. That is the hard truth, father is just a word, maybe the law says otherwise, but unless you participate in any way, you are nothing in my life, you mean nothing to a child. Curiosity was the only reason I had agreed to go.

That is my first and only memory of my supposed father. Now the real answer to the question of how I felt growing up without him is I could not care less, I had everything I needed in life, loving grandparents, a mom, her husband and my aunt, I was happy and didn't even know I was missing somebody. Sure my mom was a terrible cook, but I'll take that over smoke filled room any time. You know why? I have asthma, or rather I had serious asthma when I was a child, I can only imagine how my health would have gone if I had my real father, plus I know now that I would not want his influence in my life, I wish him all the best wherever he is, and I am endlessly thankful for actually being made, but I am more thankful I only had a mother, that I love, admire and look up up to.

My aunt and me

For those who are wondering, my asthma is sleeping, which means I don't really have any side effects except for some cough in Springs and Autumns, plus mild allergy against dust. I do not use inhaler. As a kid I spent most of the time outdoors, in the countryside, because indoors was bad for me. When I started going to school, my nose would bleed almost every day and I would have running nose 360 days a year, but now it is all a distant memory.