RE: Mothers Day Thoughts

My wife and I never had children. It was not for lack of trying, because we did, but my wife's health issues made carrying a baby to term very difficult to say the least. By the time we were in our 40's, her getting pregnant would have been a danger to her life, but going on birth control was not really an option, again, her health issues. So we made the decision that I would get a vasectomy and that was pretty much the end of it.

For myself, I am sad that we never had children, but I cannot say I regret it. I maintain that I would probably have net been terribly good at being a father. I had no real father figure in my life and the one I did have was himself a terrible father. I know I would have loved our children, and I would have done my best to give them the life they needed. However, I don't think I would have lived up to even my own low expectation. Perhaps this is just an insecurity left over from my own childhood where I watched my own father fail at fatherhood in real time. I am sure I would have done a better job than he did, but i could never shake the feeling, that i still would have been bad at.

What I do regret, is not being able to give Shannon children, I know she wanted them and I know she regrets that we never had any. In spite of that, we have made a good life for ourselves and we have many nieces and nephews who only mildly annoy us.

Shannon, I am sorry we never had children, I think you would have been a wonderful mother, who would have more than made up for my shortcomings as father. I am sure you also would have let me name them Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, or Conan and Elric. I love you, Happy mother day.