Father’s Day is approaching and it’s a time where everyone inevitably thinks about their dad. I don’t have a relationship with my father and even though it does make me sad, I actually would rather keep it that way. 

Not Having a Father

Not having a father figure isn’t rare. I know this. I was raised by my mother, pretty much on her own. She and my father separated by the time I was 3. He ran off with one of my mother’s “friends” at the time. Yup – he was THAT kind of man.

My mom was really young – I was born just a couple months before her 18th birthday. Growing up, I always remember her working 2 or 3 jobs at a time to give me everything. We had a good thing going, but she definitely struggled.

I remember being in an office and having a lady using a cotton swab inside my mouth. It was for DNA testing because my father was denying me to avoid paying child support. I also remember my mother mentioning this to friends like it was a ridiculous insinuation and everyone agreeing that I looked just like him. Now that I’m a mother too, I understand that she was feeling hurt on my behalf. How could he do that to me? My eyes water as I imagine my daughter’s father attempting to do the same.

So obviously the DNA proves the truth and the $52 weekly checks begin to come in the mail. I’m 8 years old and all of a sudden, this man wants to meet me.

So he flies from FL to CT and brings me my first computer. I’m a little girl and he “buys me”. I forget the memories of him hitting me with a switch for not eating my beans (and having to sleep on the floor). This is pre-DNA testing when they were first separated, but it honestly is too hard for me to write about right now.

Over the next few years, I am in sporadic contact with him via AOL and phone calls. I visit him and it’s OK, but the only highlight about those trips is spending time with my half sisters (who are twins). I love them very much and have had better contact with them in the last few years than I have with my father my whole life. But this is about dad, right?

When I turn 13, my mom moves us to Florida where we presume I would have more contact with my father but it doesn’t quite turn out that way. My father picks me up a few weekends and then over several months forgets he has a daughter for what feels like no reason at all. Over the years, this happens many times. Too many times.

In that time, he gets a divorce from my half sisters’ mother and marries another woman. Someone he cheated with (of course). I have mixed feelings on whether my stepmother deserves this. On the one hand, it’s karma. But on the other hand, she was the only one that paid attention to me and took care of me when I flew to FL to “visit my dad”. He was always on his computer having webcam sessions with random women.

The moment I decided I had had enough

In 2009 on Father’s Day, I was not on speaking terms with my dad. He was actually mad that I took in my half sister after he kicked her out of his house. After attending church service, we both agreed that we would try to make amends and go see him.

I remember we picked up flowers for him (who gets flowers for their dad anyway?). So we drove to his house and as we got out of the car, we realized he was in the backyard. The driveway actually has a short fence from where you can see the backyard. We walked up to the fence and asked to speak with him and you want know what he did? He looked at us and walked inside his house.

Jazlynn called out to him. My precious baby called out to her grandpa… and was ignored. He looked out of a small window on the door to us and then stepped out of sight. THAT IS THE LAST TIME I SAW MY FATHER.

At that point, there must have been 20 or 30 times he had done this to me before. But now I was a mother and I couldn’t afford that hurt on my daughter. When he did that to my daughter I remembered getting swabbed for DNA. I remembered him taking me outside his house when I was just 3 years old to beat me with a switch because I didn’t want to eat beans!! How ridiculous was this? He walked away from his granddaughter and at that moment he walked away for the last time from me.

As I write this, it brings up all of the pain I suppress every day. Does it effect my life day to day? No. It truly doesn’t because I actually am in a really good place in my life. I have been greatly blessed and I think not having him in our lives is for the better.

Jazlynn is 7 years old now and I am happy to say that she has been blessed with the men in her life. Her father, her stepfather, paternal grandfather, my father in law, and a brother from our church have all been a steady presence in her life. She doesn’t even have any memory of anything else.

I don’t have a father, and that’s really okay with me. I don’t hate my father. I feel that my greatest sin is pitying him. Pitying him means I’m judging him and that’s why I feel it is wrong. Another thing I would like to say is that though the memories of what he’s done hurt, I do forgive him for his decisions. I don’t ever want him to ask me for forgiveness because I feel like the only person who he needs to seek forgiveness from is himself.

Mami, thank you for being my constant. Te quiero mucho siempre!