My mother thought I was a tumor.

She waited until I was thirty-five to tell me this. Over a pizza lunch. She waited until my father had passed away. Perhaps he had told her never to tell me. My father was a sensitive man.

For the first five months of her pregnancy with me, she truly did think her growing belly was a tumor. I guess at her age of forty in the 1960s, she didn’t think she could be pregnant. It was uncommon, at least in our neck of the woods.  She also hadn’t had a child in almost fourteen years, when my sister Kathy was born.

Besides being surprised to find out I was almost a tumor, I was curious as to why she waited five months to see a doctor. No news is good news? Was it then happy news to learn she was pregnant instead of having cancer? I didn’t ask any of these questions at that lunch. Too stunned. And now it is too late. My mom has since joined my dad.

I still wonder, have I lived up to the expectations she had? When you start as a tumor, there’s really no place to go but up. Since learning of my early beginnings, it’s affected the way I think about myself. I always knew I was a “surprise.” I just never realized the depth of its origin.

If I pretend I was a real tumor, I can have my own twisted version of George Bailey’s It’s a Wonderful Life. I can image the world without me ever being in it.

My parents, if my mother had survived the tumor, would have had more money and more time for themselves.  They could have traveled. Maybe my father would have bought the RV he always talked about, and they would have driven out to see Mt. Rushmore.  If he had finally convinced my mother to do so. She always had an excuse to not travel far.

There would have been an even number of people at our annual holiday dinners since I was always the odd number both in number and in age.

Unlike George Bailey, I never saved anyone’s life. There can be no ripple effect of me saving someone who saved five hundred other people.  

If you don’t lead a George Bailey-like life, is it a life worth living, a life well-lived?

The lesson in this exercise is not to analyze your past. You will certainly disappoint yourself. 

The lesson is to appreciate your own existence, and not worry if you’ve done enough or too much.  And don’t worry how you started out. 

It’s now that counts.