This was an english paper I wrote a few weeks ago. Keep in mind I am only in English 1, and have never been great with words or speeches.
Kathleen
Cotter
Hernandez
ENGL 1301
3 December 2012
For
the Fatherless
I was 7 years old
the day I realized I was fatherless. Nothing significant brought about this
realization. It was just a moment I remember clearly. Daddy wasn’t around all the time, but he came
to visit regularly. About once a month… this to a child felt more like once a
year. But it had been quite a while since his last visit and every time I asked
my mother when daddy was coming back, she had nothing to say besides, “I don’t
know, sweetie.” And finally, on that day, a day otherwise like any other, as I
perused the ancient bookshelf and walked along the shaggy blue carpet in my
mother’s room it suddenly hit me: My daddy wasn’t coming back. Ever.
I remember the simple sadness of that moment.
I don’t however, remember crying. I remembered the note that he wrote in the
storybook he gave me for my second birthday, the note that said he loved me
more than he could say... guess that was a lie. One I could barely even
remember being told. And I remember the confusion setting in: Why, I wondered,
would a dad who could leave me, tell me that he loved me “more than he could
say”? What made him think he loved me? He must have changed his mind…? This
growing confusion set in: Why? Why weren’t my mother and I good enough? Where
did he go? What made him think there was something better to be found? When I
was thirteen I actually sat down and wrote him a letter asking for answers, but
to no avail. I had no address to send it to. As a result of this, I abandoned
my youth of wondering why, and spent my adolescence telling myself and everyone
who asked that it was nothing. It just was what it was and I didn’t need to
know why or really care either way. I grew bitter and prideful, and walked
around with a sense of, who cares? No father? Fine. I don’t need one. But I
could not deny the impact his absence left on my life. In my assumed cool
apathy, I acted out the classic symptoms of a girl desperately seeking love in
whatever form it took. I never had high standards for boyfriends, because I
didn’t know that I could. “Good-looking and likes me” pretty well summed up my
requirements. When I got older, I always felt inferior the other girls. I never
felt feminine or beautiful. Clearly I wasn’t worth sticking around for.
And the age-old
story goes the same way it always has; unfulfilled. There is never any peace. Only
a deep insecurity, only a void left by a father who walked away, leaving a
little girl condemned to search the world for this unconditional love, for
unqualified acceptance. I never knew what it was like to feel safe, to feel
comforted and protected. To know that if I tried to leave the house wearing
fishnets and way too much makeup, I wouldn’t get past the doorway. To have my
daddy hug me and tell me I’m the most beautiful girl in the world, and no boy
was good enough for me. I still have a hard time letting myself get close to
people, for fear of being left alone again. Thanks for the wounds, Dad. There
were girls I saw whose fathers showed up to every volleyball game, and took
them out on the town, and fought for their purity, and threatened their
boyfriends with shotguns. Boy I envied them. They were so strong and confident.
They had something I never had. They’re the lucky ones.
This was my
experience with abandonment. However, a father's abandonment has a lasting
impact on his children, and is more than a physical absence in the home; although
it includes this, it can take many shapes. It can look like simply
disappearing. Or it can be a little less obvious. It looks like a man being too
busy with work to spend legitimate quality time with his children. Instead he’s
busy “providing for the family”, and working on his golf score. It looks like a girl coming home scared every
day to a fickle alcoholic for a father, a daughter who lives her life in fear
and insecurity because she doesn’t know what it’s like to have a protector. She
will spend her adolescent and adult life subconsciously looking for someone to
save her. It looks like a boy who spends his youth overcompensating because his
father never told him he was proud of him, or made him feel he had what it took
to be a man. It’s a son who can’t handle relationships with women, because he’s
never seen his mother treated well. It’s a boy who is a great athlete, but only
plays because it’s the only way he knows to get his father to pay attention to
him. It’s a man who refuses to step up to the plate and be a real father to his
children.
It is not
wholeness. It is not safety, love and protection. It is not a daughter leaving
the house wearing something decent because her father cared enough to make her
change her clothes. It is not a boy who grew to his potential because his dad
believed in him and encouraged him. It is not a man who speaks into his
children’s lives, and provides for them in more ways than financial. It is not
a man who fights diligently for the well being of his family. It is not one who
commands integrity out of himself, so that his children will know what that
looks like.
Whether we like it
or not, our fathers shape us. Whatever the situation looks like, on either end
of the spectrum, our father’s role leaves an indelible imprint on our lives and
how we see relationships. Fathers, wake up. Your kids don’t want your money. They
don’t even need you to be perfect. They just need you to be there. They want
your attention. They want your approval. Your kids need to know that they
matter. You see, it takes more than being the biological male parent of a young
person to be called a FATHER. And kids desperately need their fathers. More
than they know, young people need their fathers. There is a proverb that says:
To whom much is given, much is required. In my opinion, a child is the one of the greatest gifts a man or woman can be given. It’s time for the fathers of this
generation to step up to the plate.
