As high school students, our teenage years with our parents can be rough. There are a lot of things they do that we don’t understand and there are a lot of things we do that they may not understand as well. As a child most of us thought our parents were perfect and growing into our teenage years just proved those thoughts wrong. Subconsciously we might not want to listen to someone who has made different degrees of mistakes because we feel that we are above that sort of thing. The truth is, no matter how unreasonable our parents seem, we need to appreciate them no matter what.

My parents divorced while I was young and that placed me with my mother and separated me from my father. All was still well. I saw my dad and my mom was doing pretty well at raising me and providing for me most of the time. Of course even then they made mistakes. Sometimes I resented my parents for the foolish mistakes that they seemed to make over and over again. What they did affected my life and frankly, I thought that they were just careless in their actions.

Now, I know that not all their mistakes were careless and inconsiderate. In fact, some were attempting to keep our family’s best interest at heart, whether they knew what the best interest was or not.

Though I know this now, I realize that in some ways I have achieved the typical teenage behavior that I have been so wary of growing up. I haven’t gone rogue or anything, but I have not appreciated the simple fact that I have parents, whether they have succeeded at being at parents or not.

About two months ago I found out my dad has stage two colon cancer. They caught it very early, but he hasn’t been able to receive treatment. My grandmother (his mother) was recently admitted into the hospital and she doesn’t have a high chance of surviving as her health has declined dramatically. My dad has had to miss a lot of work to be with her and isn’t earning enough to pay the additional costs of the treatments that insurance won’t cover. He is going through so much emotionally and physically and I have neglected the time that I have to be with him in his struggles. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have cancer that is worsening and lose my mother at the same time. I cannot only imagine that, but to go through that alone scares me even more.

This weekend I was going to spend time with my best friend who I’m said to be inseparable from, but then I thought of what it would be like to lose my father. I thought about what it would feel like if I lost both my father and my grandmother in short periods. I thought about what it would be like to see my dad in the hospital and to go to his funeral.

My dad has made many mistakes, but I’ll never forget the day that I watched a judge tell him about his neglecting of his children and the regret and sorrow in his face. He is human and he makes mistakes, but he has given me memories and love over the years. He has helped me through what I thought was unbearable and now it’s my turn. This weekend I will be going to stay with dad and reassure him that I’m here and that I love him.