My entire second grade class asked me where my dad was after I said he "was" something.

I was also the new kid in town at that time. Nice.

My third grade teacher excluded me from Mother's Day arts and crafts because she knew I didn't have a mom.

A boy in my class asked if I was a robot because I had no parents. Also Batman (how would that work???).

Another boy (same class) asked, "Is your dad dead?" in front of the whole class on Father's Day. 

When my mom wasn't my chaperone for the Mommy Daughter Dance, a girl noticed and told me I shouldn't have bothered coming.

I never saw their faces in the audience at any of my choral concerts growing up.

My junior high advisor mentioned it was abnormal that I wasn't living with my parents.

An ex-boyfriend told me it was no wonder I was so problematic.

(What with being an "orphan" and all. You know, the usual).

I graduated high school with no one in the bleachers cheering for me. 

I got looks for bringing my only picture of my parents and I to my graduation ceremony.

They didn't get to congratulate me on my first job.

Or the next. Or the next...

I never got to tell them I got accepted to my dream college.

My mom and I were supposed to get matching tattoos.

My parents will never know I left that toxic boyfriend they worried about.

I look at drugs, alcohol, and addictions from a completely different angle than other kids my age.

I grew up never knowing what true love was.

I never got to have "mother-daughter gossip."

I never had a male role model in my life.

My mom never got to meet my best friends. Just some good-for-nothing boy that broke my heart.

I grew up cold toward tragedy. Grieving is hard now. Things just seem to happen.

I see parents with their college students now and it never fails to break my heart.

I won't have my dad to walk me down the aisle.

I won't have my mom to do any girl bonding with.

The last image I have of them is the most haunting.

I rethink our last conversations all the time and speculate.

I see their auras in the world around me. Sometimes it's freaky.

I have dreams about them all the time.

Sometimes good. Sometimes bad.

I never get to tell them I love them, or hear their voices, or see their faces.

My parents will never be grandparents or in-laws.

I still have not completed my grieving process. Even after all these years.