Father’s Day…Geez! Always brings up the ‘daddy issues’…well at least for me.

Fathers are the first and often the most important men in our lives. Whether we grew up with or without them, whether they were emotionally available or distant, they provided us with more than DNA.

Their view of the world most often became our view of the world, the way they felt about us, often became the way we felt about ourselves. Our worlds are largely moulded consciously or not by our mothers’ men. By our Daddies. Our Papas. Our Pops.

There are men with kids and then there are FATHERS – men who cherish the blessings they helped God create. Today we celebrate these men: Daddies, god-fathers and father figures. As long as I’ve known myself, this has been just another Sunday only with an elephant in the room. Long story short: My father was not around. This year though was supposed to be different. This year we were supposed to be celebrating my brother…but God had other plans. And so now, I cannot help thinking about the man who was absent for most of our lives. You know it doesn’t matter how old you get, your mother is always going to be your mother…your father on the other hand…

Oh, you see that skin?
It’s the same she’s been standing in
Since the day she saw him walking away
Now she’s left
Cleaning up the mess he made
– John Mayer

Funny how things change with time and yet a lot remains the same. As I’ve matured, I have changed my mind and opinions and my way of doing things yet the feelings for and about my father remain. I wonder what was it exactly that made him leave. I asked my mother about it once and all she could offer at the time was that he had changed. In my quiet moments, I’ve often wondered, what was it that caused the change. Was he just not ready to have another child far less three? Did he not think us worth being around for?

And right there folks…is the rub of it all. Did he not think us worth being around for? Vernette-speak for “I wasn’t worth the effort.”

There are times I feel like I want answers to my questions but I tell myself that those answers may never come.Even now, does he never wonder about the three children now grown-ups he left behind? After many attempts to find/get in touch with my father it seems he does not wish to be found. I have to make peace with that. I have to forgive and let him go.

Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
– John Mayer

Scary, because I think sometimes I might make the same mistakes he did…not the leaving the father of my children with three babies to take care of part…but the cowardice of the act itself. I don’t want to be a coward. I don’t want to be someone who runs away from a blessing because I’m scared.

I’m past the age of wanting a ‘daddy’…ok a sugar daddy maybe but um…that’s another post for poorer times. I try to think about this from his point of view: Maybe he was scared, maybe he wasn’t ready for more children…maybe him not being around was a blessing in itself. What if he was there and that turned out to be worse than an absent father?

My journey has been what it has been thus far. I had a mother who did her absolute best to raise us. I never felt the ‘lack’ of a father…not really. She loved us enough for two parents. I wouldn’t change that. I do hope to meet him someday and maybe have some coffee and chat but who knows what the future holds. What I do know though, is that I will take my time and make the best possible choice when I choose the daddy for the children I want to have someday.