My father is eighty-nine years old. He lives in Arizona with his wife of five years. I got to sing at their wedding, and I always make sure I send Christmas and birthday and Father's day cards and gifts. He's no longer able to travel, and he often has difficulty remembering my name when we talk on the phone.
And whenever the phone rings, I wonder on some level if it's not that final call about him.
I'm sorry that some of y'all have lost parents. My mother died at age sixty-six from complications from emphysema due to a lifetime two-pack-a-day habit, so I do understand something of what you're going through. Lois's pain is natural, understandable, and completely human. It's not at all out of character, especially given the poor relationship she had with her father. In fact, more survivors feel cheated by the death of someone close than we're often willing to acknowledge. Her jealousy of Lucy and Lucy's child are also natural and human. And I'm a little surprised that her anger and feeling of being cheated hasn't bled over into her relationship with Clark, because that would also be a natural and human reaction.
But this story isn't finished. We need to see Lois facing her anger. We need to see Lois realizing that even though her father wasn't that great a father, he was still her father, and as such is partly responsible for the person she is today. We need to see her come to grips with her father's imperfections and admit that she loves him despite them. And we need to see Lois admit that despite his faults, he was her daddy and she loved him.
Most of all, we need to see Lois forgive her father for leaving her.
Until she does that, she's going to be hampered in all of her relationships by the leftover feelings from Sam's illness and death. Until she forgives him, she's not going to be able to be at peace with either herself or the rest of her family. And those unresolved feelings are going to impact her relationship with Clark when they finally do have a child, either natural or adopted.
And these feelings won't just go away on their own. They will pop up at obvious times, like Father's day and Christmas and Sam's birthday, but they'll also pop up when she's interviewing subjects for seemingly unrelated stories, when she's picking out clothes for her kids or talking with Clark about their schooling or discussing when the kids should be told about their origin, either their adoption or their Kryptonian heritage.
So, Catharine, we need to see this from Lois. We need to know that she's okay, because right now she's not. We need to know that she's going to make it.
And we need to know all those things about you, too, because we care about you.
