When I Lost Him

What does it mean when the person who is supposed to love you unconditionally makes you feel worthless? I think about the times I’d crawl up the stairs to pack my bag, tears streaming down my face because the court of law forced me to go. Three days every other week, those three days that you had to be a father was too much for you huh? But this conversation proved to be too much for the both of us because here I sit, silent, praying for my lungs to keep breathing, for my heart to keep beating because the pain I feel inside is killing me. 

As I lay in the chair, keeping a straight face, he tells me how great of a father he is. All the things I did not know and what he had to go through when I was growing up. Even now, at 16 years old, my own father doesn’t see me. All he sees is himself. My lack of pity and concern for the burdens he placed on me was hard for him to accept. So he stands up, deems me the problem, and walks towards the door. So I stopped him, I stopped everything around me to take in that final moment. The last time that I would have my father, the last time he would care to show up. For all this time I have hated the very thought of seeing him, being with him, and knowing him. Now, I paint a different picture. The relationship I tried so hard to protect is walking out on me. It is now that I realize how much I truly love you and want nothing more than to forgive you. But how can I forgive someone who thinks they are above the word sorry. I walk up to him, his outright expression of anger and betrayal burns right through to my heart. My hands graze his cheeks hoping to find warmth, to find the love I never felt. Take in a kind of peace we never could achieve but all I feel is the cold. The dark nights I cried myself to sleep when my mother couldn’t protect me. I want to say sorry because he cannot. If I could take the blame and all of this go away, I would. However, no matter how I try to comfort him, he responds with a dagger to my heart. I snatch my hands away from his cold face and regain my place on the sofa. I must let him go if I am to overcome this grief. As I turn away to cry in the rough green pillow I hold close to my chest, he walks out the door leaving me here alone. 

Mourning is a funny thing for me. My father is not dead yet I still cry as if he were. Not because I wish he was with me but that any chance of having a loving dad is officially gone. I will never know what a childhood with the unconditional love of a father is like. So I grieve for my younger self who knows nothing but disappointment and sadness in men. They say call on family when you need a shoulder to cry on so that’s what I do. I call my grandmother, the woman who has shown me love in it’s purest form. Unfortunately, I am met with shock and ignorance. 

“Now that is your father honey, you shouldn’t be so quick to cut him off. You will regret this someday,” Her words sank into my heart and nothing more could be uttered from my sobbing mouth. Was she right? Did I tear up what we could have had? Is the fault truly all mine and he the victim? There is nothing more I can do but go back and see where it all happened. Open the locked diary of pain buried in my traumatic memories to answer these burning questions. 

3 years old, I am getting dropped off from a weekend with my father to my mother patiently waiting with open arms to welcome me back home. I cried of joy every time I saw her smiling face because that meant I was safe. But then I entered the house without her and she went with him. The door, although closed, spilled all their secrets. Arguing, yelling, fighting, I knew they were talking about me. I buried my face in the green cushion pillow to hide the noise and I cried to get it out. My mother came back inside and she hugged me while I cried. Sometimes, I could feel her warm tears on my scalp.

4 years old, he is with wife number three and living in an apartment. Despite being in a home of seven, the hatred of my step-siblings kept me feeling lonely. Every morning I’d fill up plastic bowls with water, warm them in the microwave, and pour them into the bathtub so that I could stay clean. I watched myself as the barrettes my mom snapped in my hair swayed from side to side and my little fingers clenched onto the ends of the bowl trying my best not to spill. 

5 years old, we were finally in a real house. The crackly wood and cold musty air reminded me of how much I hated those weekends. The downstairs is nicely lit and warm but my journey takes me upwards. A crack and pop came with each step and my vision grew poor as I reached the darkness of the second floor. A long hallway of boxes and dust led me to a small attic with bunk beds. On the bottom bed, there I lay, crying myself to sleep praying that I won’t see a monster when I open my eyes the next morning. The walls covered in red paint and lamp that never worked was too much for me to bare even now. I back away from the site and bury it again.

The memories not only brought me the truth but more pain as well. The horrible things I silently endured as a child enabled to continue by my lack of strength in adolescence is convicting. I cannot speak of all the treacheries I endured to those that love me so accepting their disappointment will suffice. Coming back to the present, I feel empty. A piece of me has been lost as I wandered through the past. Where it had gone I cannot feel but rather see my distant spirit beckoning for one final show. 

6 years old, I woke from a restless slumber in a pull-up that felt dry. I can see the excitement on my face but my expression now is only sorrowful for the events about to come. I rise, remove the pull-up, and toss it in the trash. Then, his deep voice echos down the hall summoning me. I jumped as if he were truly calling me now and so did the little girl whose smile had fallen to a frown. She wasted no time and ran to answer the call while all I could do was walk out to the hallway. I see her bright red barrettes jump up and down as she runs to come back and pull the pamper out of the trash. My legs begin to drag towards the living room where the girl stands and the dad sits. 

“Did you pee last night?” His voice always accused her.

“No, the pamper is dry,” Even now the tremble in her voice made my throat shrivel. My heavy feet weren’t ready to move, but I don’t need to see what takes place next.

He weighs the pamper in his hands, “This feels heavy, why are you lying?”

As though we both swallowed down the same knotted throat I felt the words she was about to say slip through my lips in a whisper, “I am not lying, I swear I thought it was dry!” But that was never enough and that’s when I heard it. His hand clammer against her cheek. I closed my eyes as a tear dropped down mine. When they opened, there she was, lying on the floor fighting back the tears.

“Do you want another one? Stop lying,” He then rose to return to his bedroom. As his bulky body, walked passed my sunken body on the floor, it was then I knew what had happened. It was that 6-year-old little girl, that day, who lost her dad. It was at this moment that she lost her father. Now, when I see that man exit that front door, I smile because now I can hold that little girl and tell her the pain is over. The bad man is gone and he is never coming back. I can tell her that she is protected and nothing bad will ever come to her again.