A Fatherless Father’s Day

Where do I even begin? I already know this isn’t for you, this is for me. This is my story to tell, and to tell it for years, was shameful for me. I was embarrassed but for the first time, I finally understood that shame and embarrassment wasn’t mine to bare, it was yours. And yours alone.

As long as I can remember, I remember the story being told to me about how you  incessantly prayed up until the moment I was born for me to be a boy. Imagine that for a moment will you? Envision a little girl hearing this story over and over her developing years and consider how that might have had a founding impression. Then remember you were never apart of my life. You put shame on being female and for what? Because it made you giggle? Because it made you feel superior?

Why was it so hard for you to love me? For you to want me? Why didn’t you fight for me when I couldn’t fight for myself? I was a child and all I ever wanted from you was love, was protection. From the moment I was born, you failed to be there in any measurable scope and yet you look back today as though your countless acts of abandonment held no bearing.

I think of you and all I feel are lies and cowardice acts, I feel them to the depths of my bones. Your inability to take ownership in every shortcoming has shaped me. Your words are so thickly coated with lies and depleted of truths that it makes it impossible to try. Is that why you hold on to them so deeply, because the lies you tell become the protection you need to feel for your actions, or lack thereof?

What would have happened if I would have listened to you when you told me not to go to college? Can you not understand your words have consequences? Oddly, I am grateful you tried taking my future from me too. For those words were what replayed with every hurdle I had to overcome and every battle I fought just to keep afloat. For every time it was hard, because believe me just making it was hard, your words were harder.

You remember, that was of course after graduating high school early just so I could work full time. For even high school required my employment to power the price of a home that neither you nor Valerie seemed fit to provide me. To even try to provide me. You didn’t even care enough to concern yourself with how I was making it. Why would you?

So pardon me if I get dizzy from the delusions. You call me at random in my adulthood and carry on a conversation as though you knew me. As though you were apart of my life. As though I mattered to you.  You have no real understanding how badly you failed; not just once, but four times; four lives. Sometimes I wonder how you live with yourself but then I remember its no bother to you, for you don’t have any accountability for your actions. You’ve never had to.

But why do you hide behind the lies? Sometimes my stomach churns merely at the thought of the things you broke me with. You left me my entire life, you refused to claim me purely because of sex, you choose a woman over your children for decades to come, you choose to turn a blind eye when I needed you most, you choose yourself amongst the rest, you choose greed, you choose everything but me. You can’t even be honest with your wife about the half attempts you’ve made in my adulthood.

Your inability to stand up and be a man is the defining reason I grew up to be so outspoken, so raw, so blatantly honest, so mighty, so masculine. I learned to be everything you failed to be. Through all of your wrong doings, I understand everything I didn’t want my world to be, everything I could not be. I am not anything like you.

I don’t mean for my words to cut, but they do cut, and they cut because of your actions, not because of my truths. They cut because you caused irrefutable damage to lives, to the very people you were suppose to protect and you are oblivious to.

The walls I have built to protect myself from such casualties are yours to claim, built by the hands of your actions. You want to pretend as though I never died a hundred times over by you, but I want to pretend like you cared.

Parents have a duty to protect their children, to love them, to nourish them. You didn’t do that, you didn’t even try. I don’t care to hear the excuses, I don’t dare dive into your absurdities, but I beg of you for actions if you continue to live in this delusion. I forgive you for the past but I must protect my future. Take action or take flight, but make a decision, a decision you can live with.

Until then, thank you for teaching me how unfair life can be, for showing me how strong I can be. For I am everything you are not. I am everything you couldn’t be. I am strong, I am honest, I am brave, I am righteous, I am love, I am selfless, I am wise.

Thank you for life.