'Our Father'

I have just read my sister's most recent post for Sunday Scribblings and I feel compelled to write something of my father as well. It's always hard to think about this without it bringing that familiar lump to my throat. It amazes me how an absence can cause so much damage. But I wonder what our life would have been like with him in it.

I have very few happy memories of our father, sad really that when I look back I cannot recall a solid memory to convince myself that even though he abandoned us, he really did love us. It is hard to believe that he is out there somewhere living his life, being a father and a husband. He feels fictitious to me now, a myth, a character I have made up. It is hard to believe that he hasn’t tried to write or phone or visit his two daughters in the last 21 years. It is also hard to believe that talking or thinking about him still makes me cry.

Once he had left for good we never spoke of him, and it is only in recent years that I actually found out some of the details of what he did and what he was really like. I still feel uncomfortable when people ask me about him, I feel ashamed that he treated my mother the way he did, that I share his DNA and that I pined for a father that didn’t love me enough.

He used to carry me on his shoulders when I was little, a rare treat that let me see the world from this giant’s viewpoint. I’ve always worried what characteristics of his would come out in my personality, that I would suddenly become angry, sullen and a liar. I have been angry, I have been withdrawn, I have even embroidered on the truth a little, but these are not the characteristics that define me. His genes made me the tallest girl in my school, and that about covers it.

I pity him now, that he will never know us or see our success or watch us get married or hold his first grandchild (things I keep my fingers crossed for, for Susannah and myself). But I can’t forget what a predicament he put us in, and what a struggle it has been. So I thank my lucky stars that we have a mother who despite all of this has loved us more than anything our entire lives. It is so rare that his absence upsets me anymore, and the nine-year-old girl has started to play again.