My two raised children lucked out. My former husband and I did not have a good marriage, but he was a staunch and supportive Dad and remains so to this day, even if he can get a bit curmudgeonly at times. My oldest, reunited daughter has fond memories of the man who raised her, the man she called "Daddy." My reunited son's adopter is still living and I am not really pleased with the father he had or the father he got.
I am sure that today will be hard for my daughter. Her natural father, who abandoned me, still refuses to allow her into his life. Her other "Daddy" is deceased. For me, the fact that I was lied about and abandoned by the boy who was the love of my life at the time, is even more painful than the date rape that followed by virture of those lies. That worthy gentleman also refuses to allow my son access to his paternal heritage. I went behind his back and talked to his mother to get some medical information my son needed. The less I see and hear of him, the better.
My kids are all calling to wish their "Poppy" a Happy Father's Day, today. They are his step-children and I am sure that he will spend a lot of time, today, thinking about his only child, Marcus, who died by his own hands in March of 1996. My kids love him and consider him a parent, but they can't replace his son. He tries to concentrate on the good memories. He decided that his life, how he conducted himself in his work, his marriage and all his other relationships would be a memorial to his son. He has more than accomplished his goal, there.
I miss my Grampa K. who passed away in February of 1969, just 3 months after we lost my mother. He was one of my most favorite men in the whole wide world. At 6', 6" with a huge, barrel chest and a shiny, bald head, he was a gentle giant. My sisters and I, when visiting as teens and getting ready to go out, used to love to kiss his bald head after we put on our lipstick. When we came home, those lip prints would still be on his head.
I am really happy for those of you whose experiences with the fathers of your children lost to adoption were good. However, it is a FACT that, for the majority of us in the EMS, that wasn't the case. All it would have taken would have been an admission that they were the fathers and the agreement to marry the mother of their child, even if in name only and even if it were followed quickly by divorce. Our children would have been raised by the family of their origin and the whole OBC thing would be a moot point. I even try to give them the benefit of the doubt by realizing that many of them were just boys, horny, entitled, males. Nah. I take that back. They were assholes for the most part.
I remember one girl telling me, at the FCH in Savannah where I was incaercerated until the birth of my son, that her beloved told her, "Katy, there are girls you marry and girls you f***. You proved yourself to be one of the latter and I have no way of knowing how many others there have been." Tears were pouring down her face when she told me this. I cried in total empathy. He was the only one she had ever allowed to even kiss her.
My daughter's sperm donor told her that I was "promiscuous" and that he just couldn't be sure she was his, even as he was looking into his own eyes. She even answers the phone the same way he did, Why, over 30 years later, did he still feel the need to try to diminish me? I am fortunate that she believed me over him. For two decades, I obsessed over a guy who wasn't worth the first tear I ever shed over him. The pain was so sharp that, even though I no longer feel it, I can certainly remember it. And when I do, I can look at my husband and thank my lucky stars for a real man.
I, and many, many others lost more than our children. It was not just a matter of losing my dreams of love and the approval of my loved ones, but then to have my children taken and being judged as unfit, all because I loved someone who was a jerk, added so much insult to injury. Then to be violently assaulted because of the lies told and believed....Well, you can see why I have to approach Father's Day with a bit of caution. Is there still some residual anger? Well, would I be human if there wasn't? Only now, the anger isn't for me, but for my children.
But, to all the good Dads out there, I wish you a sincerely happy Father's Day. You are to be commended for being there.
2 comments:
Your post really hit home today, Robin. I loved my son's father beyond reason. When I was in the home I waited, praying that he would come and rescue us, not quite believing that the loss would become reality. And, he did come. When the SA Woman came to tell me that he had come for us and they had him arrested I lost it. I am not sure I found it again until fairly recently. I mourned that loss as well.
I loved my daughter's father the same way, even after he betrayed me. It seems that our loves were either cowards or easily swayed.
Post a Comment