I am my mom’s gigantic mistake.

My grandparents used to host international exchange students when my mother was little. My mother is the eldest of four brothers and sisters. My grandmother gave birth to her seven years after the last boy, therefore she is much younger than the others. She was daddy’s little girl because she was the only one. Both her brothers and father spoilt her rotten, but due to the year gap, she was also kept at home a lot and not allowed as much as her brothers.

A new exchange student comes every summer. My mother often stays at home, while her elder brothers and sisters take the exchange students to the attractions. I don’t know how many exchange students they had over the years. I don’t know how many exchange students they had over the years, but in the summer of 1990, a Danish gentleman moved into this house.

This Dane was a religious Christian who was sent to England to pursue his legal degree. He was 21 years old at the time of his trade. He came from an affluent family, all of them, according to what I’ve heard, were lawyers or jurists.

My mother was seventeen at the time, and the only child still living at home. She continued to attend school, study, hang out with her friends and do whatever a girl her age did. Even though Dane was a law student, he was always humble and willing to help out at my grandparents’ house. My mother also did a lot of housework for my grandmother, which allowed her to get to know that Dane.

(My grandma told me she suspected my mother of having an affair with him from the beginning because she promised to clean the entire first floor — where that Dane lived at the time.)

With the passage of time, my mom and that Dane grew closer and closer, eventually developing a romantic relationship. They were really close and spent all of their free time together when they weren’t studying. They’d go to the movies together, she’d introduce him to her friends as her boyfriend, and Dane and my mother’s lives were like a storybook. My mother would sneak into his room after the house had quieted down to spend even more time with him.

My grandparents soon became aware of the relationship and its serious nature. They weren’t thrilled at first that my mother was falling in love with an exchange student because they knew he’d be going shortly. Dane, on the other hand, was a fine man from a respectable family who could provide for his future family, had strong Christian beliefs, and seemed to adore their daughter. So they enthusiastically consented when he requested for the daughter’s hand in marriage. Dane proposed to my mother after eight months of knowing each other, and she accepted.

Spring arrived, and that Dane was on his way back to his homeland. My mother became ill with what appeared to be food poisoning a few days before he left, and he took care of her. They spent their final days together in her bed, talking about their plans and planning every last aspect of their lovely future.

That Dane would return to Denmark to complete his examinations and inform his parents of his engagement to my mother. They would correspond via letters and swore to be faithful and patient with one another. He was the love of her life, and she couldn’t wait to marry him and start their own life together. As a result, he walked away, and the game of waiting began…

It was soon discovered that my mother’s illness was not caused by food poisoning, but by the fact that she was expecting me. When she found out, she was said to be the joyful she’d ever been, and she wanted to tell Dane as soon as she got the news. She never did anything like that. She wrote him a never-ending stream of aching love letters that he never looked.

She gave birth to me on December 8, 1991, when she was 18 years old. I’m sure she loved me to the best of her abilities, but I felt like I was always reminding her of what she had lost. My mother had vivid green eyes and red hair, but I have dark-haired hazel eyes and hazel eyes. My mother was a young uneducated girl from a decent Christian family who had become accidentally pregnant with a man who ran away and left her behind, and she was the target of a lot of rumors.

My grandmothers, who adored both me and my mother, assisted my mother in raising me. I did well in school, was well-behaved, and had friends just like the other kids. After all, I went to high school, played soccer, chased girls, had friends, and lived a quiet regular life. My grandfather died of a heart problem when I was fifteen, and my grandmother died in her sleep a year later. It wasn’t until this time that things started to go wrong for my mother.

Life came crashing down at that point. My mother began to drink, and the bottle gradually got the better of her. She drank away all the dark memories and died of heart failure less than a week before my 21st birthday in December of 2012.

My mom never remarried, and I never had any siblings, and at the age of 20, I was by myself in the world. It wasn’t easy, but I stuck to what my mother had taught me since I was a child: get an education. Never give up on yourself. Be a good person.

Now that I’m engaged to the most fantastic woman and the stepfather of a lovely, intelligent little girl, I feel myself to be the luckiest man on the planet. Each day, I thank God for putting them into my life and giving me the strength to keep going.

I’m not sure if that Dane is aware of my existence to this day. I don’t know what happened to him – if he was a jerk who exploited a young girl if he ever returned to Denmark if his parents disapproved of his decision… All I know is that he wrecked my mother’s heart and that I refuse to accept him as my biological father.