When I was younger, my mother always told me that my father loved us. She had hope that he would come back and we'd be a perfect 'Brady Bunch' family. When I was a kid, I believed it, too.
As I got older, that hope faded.
I could never understand why my mother fell so head-over-heels for him, and how she remained hopelessly in love despite the fact he left her while she was pregnant with his child.
Growing up, I never thought much of him. I imagined him as some deadbeat who was never coming back for us, no matter what we did or what my mother said.
But then there was my mother- she was a different story, she was the absolute perfect mom. Kind