A Father's Love or the Lack Thereof

Dedication

There is one woman in my life for whom my love is undeniable. She truly means the world to me and, if she were to leave this earth tomorrow, my world would be turned upside down.

From day one it has been the two of us. She was a young woman of 22 and I was just a baby, no man or daddy around, but we had each other and that was enough. She often told me how I changed her world, but she IS my world. This woman sacrificed, gave, and loved more than any woman that I have ever known, and probably more than I will ever understand. This chick is down to ride!

I have so many recollections of growing up with you, Mom. I remember having to wake up at the crack of dawn so you could get me ready for school, and you telling me even then that I had the potential to be anything I wanted to be. I would talk to you about all my lofty dreams - I pretty much wanted to run the world – and you listened. I remember that we were usually the first to arrive at before care, and you would look at me as if you hated having to leave me two hours before school even started, so you could get to work.

I remember going to after school and usually being one of the last ones to leave. I always knew when you were coming, because the sound of your shoes when you walked was etched in my brain, just like the way your keys jingled when you walked. Everyone else said, That's a bad navy woman, but I proudly chimed, That’s my mom, super woman!

Every time you came to pick me up you greeted me with a smile, happy to see the man in your life. And although most days I got in trouble, you just said O' God and hugged me! We walked hand in hand to our black Camry...and we went home.

No matter how late it was you made sure I ate and was ready for school again the next day. I remember that Saturday mornings were the best because those were our IHOP days, just my mamma and me.

When I got to third grade and started going on field trips I asked if you could come with me. You went on every one. When I took an interest in basketball you were at every game. Somehow you made sure I got to every practice on time, even if you had to leave work early. My love for this woman grew the older I got.

How could I ever forget the time I was home alone and thought someone broke into our home? You played Fred Hammond’s No Weapon and we listened to that song over and over for about an hour, until I told you I wasn’t afraid any more.

Then there was the time at Thanksgiving when someone asked what I wanted to be when I grew up and I think I named everything I had ever thought of. The man told me that I just had to pick one. You went off on him because you always told me that I could do it all! I remember the person that you told off was your own father. Mom always had my back, and to this day she still has it. Nobody better mess with her boy.

Well Mom, now I am 22 and you are the best thing that has happened in my life. Everything that we went through, both good and bad was necessary. (It is funny that when I was a kid I went to school in the dark and got home after dark. I still grind around the clock so some things haven’t changed. I still believe I can do it all!)

You sacrificed the world for me Ma, and God is working in my life so that I will be able to give the world back to you. If the woman that I marry is even half the mother that you have always been, our kids will be pretty lucky. I love you mom, and I don't have to wait till Mother’s Day to tell you that.

This book is for you, with my love and my thanks.

Introduction

I felt all alone in this world my entire life. I have always wondered about my biological family, specifically my father. Is the man that is said to be my father really my father? Does he love me or know of me? Has he ever held me? These are all unknown questions to which I have no answer. Periodically these unknowns resurface and lead to anger, bitterness, frustration and resentment. I wonder if the day will ever come that I will see his face and know that he is my dad! Or will he just be an afterthought, or someone I can only imagine, like the picture I made up of my mother?

As time moved on the desire to know my father seemed to diminish. Or maybe my desire to become a better woman became my focus, I don’t know. I find myself alone at 34 and it hurts. But I am learning, I think, to honor myself. I have attempted more now than ever to repair strained relationships with my brothers. I am the only girl and baby of the family with 3 older siblings. My desire to have their love is even more important to me than knowing my father but I have no clue why. The more I push for a relationship with them, though, the more I see they are not interested. It hurts me so much to know that I have brothers who appear not to care about me. I am a people watcher so I see fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters, who obviously care about one another. Their family bonds appear unbreakable, but I believe the foundation of any family bonds I could have were corrupted while I was still in my mother’s womb!

If I died tomorrow no one would know or care. My disabled child would be as alone as I have been. I just don't want him to suffer loneliness. I understand that my brothers had the same upbringing as me, never knowing a father. But they have wives and children and you can see the love (I know it’s different). They don't speak to me. We have no interaction with one another. My estranged relationship with them is the equivalent of having a father who doesn't care if you exist.

I'm not sure how much my father’s absence has affected my life but it is seems to cripple every other relationship that I have with a man. Honestly I do feel like I deserve a man’s love! It hurts my soul to be all alone in the world. My mom died because of bad choices that she made, my dad doesn't care, and I don't know why my brothers and I are so detached. I believe the poor choices I made in relationships are a direct result of the absence of a father and my brothers’ rejection.

I want my son to have what I didn't, a father’s love. I pray every day that God establishes that relationship with his father.

—C

My mother and father split up when I was a baby, and they were never married. I only saw him once in a blue moon because they would get into such terrible arguments that even though he wanted to see me, he hated coming around. Also, he didn’t want me to see them arguing because he realized it bothered me. I saw him a few weekends out of the year and he would call me on my birthday. I remember once he told me he was coming for me when I was about 6 or 7. I waited all day by the window in my yellow Fisher Price chair until the sun went down and my mom told me I had to eat and get ready for bed. I kind of suppressed the pain from that day until recently. I felt like I wasn’t important enough for him to remember me. This brought along insecure feelings of being insignificant. He didn’t start taking me every weekend until maybe between the ages of 10 and 13. I could talk to him and he made me laugh. However, I could not express my love to my dad. When he came to see me, I’d say, hey pop and walk with him into the house, but without giving him a hug. He would kiss me in the face and give me bear hugs, but for some reason I couldn’t reach out to him first. I remember feeling nothing when he would hug and kiss me. Empty. I think him not being around when I was a little made me shut him out emotionally. I really didn’t realize this until after I had started getting closer to God about two or three years ago. I was at my dad’s house. When I woke up in the morning, I went into the kitchen, hugged him and said Good morning, Daddy. He hugged me back, chuckled and said wow! I don’t get many of these and that was the first time I remember randomly giving my dad a hug. I was about 21 years old. I realize now that building an emotionally open relationship with God allows me to have one with everyone else, including my dad. God opened me up in places that closed from pain and disappointment so I could love like I was meant to.

—B

Life with my mother was all I knew. It was the normal way of living, and I didn’t know it wasn’t perfect until I was in the middle of transitioning into manhood. That’s when I began to notice there were a lot of things that mother could not teach me, like shaving, fixing a car, and behaving or thinking like a man. My mother once asked, Do you miss your dad? I simply replied, I don’t know my dad. It never affected me, because a man was never in the house, but things would change when she started dating her future husband, whom I resented, because he was disrupting my perfect universe of just my mom and me. Hanging around him felt awkward, because I never spent time with a dad before, and I responded to the feeling in a negative way towards him, not letting him in. During that time, at about 10 years old, I talked to my biological father for the first time on the phone. This was a mistake on his part. When my mom saw the caller I.D. and told me to answer it, I didn’t know who it was. After the 10-second, 17-word conversation ended, I began truly feeling unwanted by the man that I referred to as my sperm donor. This also affected the relationship with my future stepfather in a more negative way. At about 17, I just began not to care about any dad figure in my life, but I thank God for my spiritual fathers and mentors speaking into my life, telling me I was different from most young men. Those words really helped me to accept my biological father’s attitude towards me in a positive manner. I was 20 years old when I talked again to my dad. I wanted closure before heading off to college at the St. Louis Dream Center. We met at Cheddar’s down the street from my Charlotte, North Carolina home. I never knew the depth of anger in my heart regarding my father until I spoke on the phone with him to set up this life-altering meeting. I was so angry! I felt over-whelmed and burst out yelling once he hung up the phone. Then I began weeping. Justin doesn’t cry about anything, except maybe a really good movie.

—J

In my younger years, the absence of my father didn't affect me much. Being around other kids who were from single parent households seemed like the norm to me. I had what was called a father-figure (stepdad) who turned out to be just what the term states, a figure. I never had the chance