I was around 11 years old when I realized that my father wasn't ever going to be there for me. I was 7 when him and my mother separated and even though they weren't together, I never thought he wouldn't be there for me or my sister. His visits would be every weekend at first, then every other weekend at best, and then fizzled into nothing. Not hearing from him, not knowing where he was at, and finally not caring where he was at or who he was choosing to spend his life with were the phases I eventually went through.
I remember one of our last visits together when I was younger, we had just finished eating somewhere (Dairy Belle probably) and I knew I wanted to spend more time with him. He always had an excuse. I was tired of living with my mom and not feeling wanted, I wanted to feel the way I felt with him. Special, number 1, nothing else mattered but us and the love he had for us. I rarely felt that with my mom. In fact, the only time I would feel that way was when she was breaking up with someone. Anyway, a song came on as we drove over the train tracks, Always and Forever by Al Green. There was one part where the Reverend sings, "and we'll share tomorrow, together..." that part I felt so deeply riding shotgun with my father that night. I wanted to share tomorrow with him. Of course that never happened.
I neither hate or love my father. Being a parent today, I really can't understand why any parent would abandon their children regardless of who the other parent is, what lifestyle they are living, or what jealous spouse they are hitched with. A child never asks to be brought into this world and when they are born are given two people to absolutely count on. When one parent checks out and decides to live her own life and the other parent disappears and decides to live their own life, what is a child left with? Who does this child seek for advice, comfort, love, understanding? I'm just glad I never turned to a gang.
This past Sunday something happened to a little person very very dear to me that rehashed these old feelings of abandonment. My little Chloe seen a picture of her mommy and daddy together when they were younger. She stared at it intensely and I seen it in her face. The emptiness, hurt, anger and love in her eyes. The yearning for a more familiar time when she knew she would see her Daddy and he would be there for her. She could count on him to do the things mommy couldn't or wouldn't do. A time when she can feel his arms wrap around her and she knew and felt that at that instant everything would be okay. Even if her mommy and daddy weren't together he was a father that would always be there for her. Feeling her pain I grabbed her and rocked and cried with her. I knew that sting all too well. Realizing that my little Chloe would grow up with this same pain regardless of how much everyone around her would try and fill that void broke my black heart to pieces. No one can replace a father. Especially when a child has already felt his love.
Children dwell on feelings, they hurt, they cry, they scream, throw tantrums, they harbor emotion some more fiercely than others. They also love and adore their parents with a passion we as adults soon forget. We are the world to them as they should be for us. Nothing can replace a father's love once it's felt. Nothing...
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