My Father

As a child, my mother pawned me off on whichever family member would take me while she ran around. My biological father was married to her, but they divorced not long after I was born. And, from what I can tell, he never tried too hard to rescue me from her. There, of course, is the rub.

I have a vast capacity for forgiveness, and my father and I have a relationship now. Forgiving and forgetting are not the same, though. In my mind, everything my mother did or allowed to be done to me, my father was complicit to.

Then there are the things he did all by himself, like not suing for custody, not paying child support, not insisting on having visits with me. Those are decisions he made all by himself.

Without going into a lot of detail here (I’ll save it for another post.), some Very Bad things happened to me while I was with my mother. Looking back now, sometimes it’s hard to believe I survived. While I don’t blame my father for all of it, he is partly to blame. And I am angry. Really angry.

I see a girl post on a Facebook page thanking him for being part of her life…..for being like a father to her. It breaks my heart a little. I want to ask, “Who the hell even are you!?”

I’ve invited him to visit us at our home. Spend a weekend getting to know my children. Too far to drive. Car’s not that great. Any excuse will do when you need one, right?