In my freshman year of high school, my parents separated and then divorced. One of the casualties of this caustic divorce was my relationship with my father. Immediately after the divorce, he remarried and focused his time and energies on his new wife and her children and grandchildren. He never asked to see me or arranged for any visitation.
After I married and started a family of my own, I rarely saw him, even though he lived only a few minutes from my home. But I loved him, and I kept thinking that if I were just a better daughter, he'd grow to love me.
I cried a lot of tears. Holidays were the worst.
