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I stopped talking to my father in 2004 (long story).  Almost three years ago I found out was dying and was given six months to live.  He outlived that expectancy but did pass about a year ago.  I think I’ve mostly dealt with it fine.  I struggle because I don’t feel like he deserves my grief or mourning him, but at the end of the day he was my dad and I do have some good memories of him before my parents’ divorce when I was a young child and after he got out of prison the last time.

Hannabeth Leigh hated her name but every time she sighed about it to her parents, her mother, Anna, would get a sad look in her eye and her father, Mike, would shake his head.

“You were named for your grandmothers.  I wish you could have met either of them,” Anna would say.

“And Lee was my younger brother who died in a car accident two months before you were born,” Mike would add.  “We just changed the spelling.”

“I know,” Hannabeth would reply.  “It’s just, well, do you have to call me by both names all the time?  Hannabeth is already a cumbersome name.  Being called by both names is a lot.”