Luna's Story Pt.1

Let’s see what you think of this one…it’s the true, very personal story of my friend, *Luna. She has given me permission to use this here. I actually know both sides of this story.

Luna hasn’t spoken to her father in about 4+ years…

This is the back story.

As a young girl Luna was very close with her father. Her parents split when she was twelve and her father met a woman, *Belinda. Luna was very cold to Belinda, which in my opinion is probably the norm in this type of situation. Belinda not only made it impossible for the Luna to have any alone time with her father but she also never failed to make a snide comment about Luna’s mother.

Meanwhile Luna and her father, having no “quality time” together began to grow apart. She grew up and he changed drastically as well.

So, time goes on and the distance between them grows. They got together for Christmas and he takes her to dinner around her birthday…but the conversation was limited. It consisted of the inane questions that you ask of a stranger as you try desperately to form some sort of connection, “Seen any good movies lately?” was the type of thing he would ask.

Luna attempted to reach out to him on several occasions and although each time he admitted that it was indeed him creating the distance, he never did anything to rectify the problem. Actually he usually didn’t return her calls and on the rare occasion that she got him on the phone his response would be something like “I’m busy. Is this important?”

Flash forward—One day Luna gets a phone call from her dad. He is calling to inform her that he has cancer. “No big deal,” he says. “Going in for surgery and I’ll be fine. I just wanted to let you know.”

In the months that followed Luna’s dad not only returned her calls but frequently called her just to see how she was. I recall her saying to me, “Wow! I’m remembering what it’s like to have an actual ‘Dad’.” She sounded so happy telling me that she had called him on the spur of the moment and he had come out to meet her and her kids at the mall just to play air hockey in the arcade.

Well, a year or so goes by and her dad is declared cancer-free. I distinctly remember how lighthearted she seemed when reporting this amazing news to me.

Unfortunately I can also recall with great clarity shortly after…when he went right back to his former behavior. This is what she said to me about it,

“To be honest, I feel as if he was only trying to make amends, like he thought ‘Oh shit! I might die from this! I better try to right my wrongs’ then when the scare was over he thought ‘why bother?’ and THAT hurt more than not having him all those years.”

I’m going to stop for today but this story is not over yet.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this so far?

*Names have been changed.