Growing up, I never really had a close relationship with my dad, my biological mother would never let me see him, but I never knew why, and now at 17-years-old, I still do not know. This never effected me as a young child, just because I never knew what I was missing, until May of 2011. I was in the 6th grade, 11-years-old, inching closer to 12, when my mother and step father called me into the living room to tell me that my father had died. Being so young, I should have been confused, not being able to understand death, but I knew what it meant. It meant I was never going to have the chance to have a close relationship with my dad, he was never going to get the chance to be the best friend that I wish he could have been. I began to question why, and how. My mother told me that he had taken his own life, making the question why, so much greater.

Now, here I am; 17-years-old, a senior in high school, and five years after his death. The pain and the sadness should have been long gone by now, the why should have been answered, and I should be used to the fact that I am never going to have that relationship with my dad that I always dreamed of. But now it has begun to hit me harder than it has since the initial hit. My dad was not able to go to my tennis matches, he was not here to celebrate my acceptance into my top choice school. He will not be able to come to my swim meets and be there on senior night, he won't be able to be there for me at my senior prom, and he will not get the chance to be with me as I walk across the stage of the coliseum and receive my diploma, signifying my graduation, my exit from high school and youth, and my entrance into college and independence.

The loss of a parent so young has significant impacts on a child, the time spent wondering and questioning without being given an answer. The endless amount of times spent crying themselves to sleep. The empty chair at graduation that would have been filled by them, and the void in their heart that could have been filled by being offered the chance at a lifetime relationship, just to be unattainable by their death.