Fatherless.

I’ve always known I grew up without a father. It was just a thing… another thing by which I explained my life to others. With all the men who my mother married, none fathered us. They didn’t show love, affection, kindness, wisdom, support, lessons to learn, memories, traditions or anything else. They were there to be with my mom and nothing more. Her three kids were a necessary evil, an inconvenience at the best of times, and a burden to carry in the worst. My mom had many men in our lives throughout my childhood. She married four of them, including my biological father. All others were live-in boyfriends. None of the men who were in our lives were good, loving, kind, wholesome men, except one. Ron. But the time with him was short and more importantly, wrought with contention as he was 28 years older than my mom. He was the only good man I remember in our life.

My biological dad wrestled with his own demons. He was an alcoholic. He was homeless for the last 17 years of his life. He bounced from shelter to shelter and such in the streets of Memphis. His reusable stainless steel coffee mug reeking of whiskey days after his death. I met my dad four times in my life after my birth, and before his death. Four. He was not a person who I could have present in my life and he didn’t want to be present in my life except to ask for money when the whiskey ran low. He would call and sing Johnny Cash songs and then ask for money. I couldn’t send it. I wouldn’t send it. I asked God for forgiveness in these times because of the war waging in my spirit. I wanted to help my dad but I couldn’t bring myself to feed the addiction. My desire to help came from a desire to be wanted, to be loved, to be needed by my father. He never expressed those emotions to me before so I couldn’t expect that the situation would change if I gave him every last penny I had in my possession. It wasn’t realistic. But the war waged anyway. My sense winning out over the brokenness in my heart and soul. And then I fell to my knees and cried to God to forgive me. Forgive me for not helping when I had the means but not the desire. Forgive me for denying my father his ask. Forgive me for being selfish with my emotions. Forgive me for protecting myself against a father who didn’t love me wholly, a father who didn’t know me at all. (He only knew my phone number to ask for money.)

Today, at 44 years old, and finally free to feel all the things I need to feel, I watch a Facebook reel about a young man giving his adoptive dad a copy of his updated birth certificate with his dad listed as his father. He had the chance to ask his dad to legally adopt him and give him the honor and privilege of being his. It was absolutely beautiful. The father accepting the gift so gracefully and the son knowing whose he was and making it legitimate in all the ways he could on earth. He was chosen. Against all odds, he was chosen and loved by a man who wasn’t biologically related to him. Absolutely beautiful.

Watching this today gutted me. I cried the ugliest, most guttural cry I’ve ever produced in my life. I was wailing. My chest and heart ached with the pain searing through my soul. I’ll never have a father. I’ll never have a dad to ask to be my father, to adopt me, to choose me. I’ll never, ever have a father. This is an irrefutable truth. And it is so sad. I feel so sad. I feel so sad about the loss of the opportunity that never was. The denial and abandonment of being a child of a man who couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t choose me. He chose drinking instead. He chose his demons instead. And that’s his burden to bear but the hole in my soul to fill. In the wake of my wailing, I knelt in tears and utter surrender and envisioned myself reaching for the hem of Jesus’ robes and asking him to choose me. Thanking him for choosing me. Thanking him for giving me guidance when the presence of my father was absent. Thanking God for being the best father, nurturer, counselor, I could ask for. Begging God to never leave me fatherless ever again. The tears poured out of me as I knelt on the floor in front of my dryer as I pulled the clothing out to fold.

I’ll never have a man here on earth who I can ask to be my dad. I’ll never have a father on earth who will support and guide me. I’ll never have a dad who will help me do yard work or set up a fire pit. I’ll never have a dad to help me with car troubles or the like. I’ll never have a father to walk me down the aisle if I ever marry again. I’ll be poignantly fatherless. And that’s a sad, but true reality.

In time, and with tremendous prayer, maybe God will heal the hole that is left in the absence of a father. Maybe God will heal that wound all the way up and it will no longer hurt at all, or ever again. But today, the anguish of years of the heaviness of being without a father hurts my heart and comes roiling to the surface of my being. Today, the wound is wide open.

Painfully yours,

The Repressed Peach