My dad walked out when I was 12, and pretty much created a childless life for himself and my stepmother. He tried to be more family oriented when the grandchildren came along, but he was absent from my life so much that it really didn’t have that pronounced of an effect. My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimers 8 years ago and is moving into the last stages. She always gave terrible advice, and I would do the exact opposite of what she told me to do.
I wonder about my friend, who is a Vietnamese orphan, adopted by an American GI as a toddler. Her parents had a biological son, and then adopted my friend and two more Vietnamese orphans. She knows her birth name, but nothing else about her family of nativity. Her father died about 10 years ago, and it came out that her mom never really wanted to adopt Vietnamese children; it was her dad’s idea. That seemed to me to make the loss much more profound. Add to that, two failed marriages, with children by two different fathers, and there is a life disconnected.