I’ve never really known my father. Literally. Not in the figurative sense that is common among people, to describe a person they should know but find they don’t. He’s been out of my life for most of it. No, all of it.
My mother and he were together for some period before I was conceived, but sometime thereafter they split and I am not sure why. Growing up I knew his name, that he came by [unwelcome] once when I was was about 2 years old, and that he lived in the town next to ours. Oh and that he had been in jail [after he and my mother were together] and that he had 2 daughters now [or so I was told].
And really, that was enough. I didn’t need anything more. I have never felt that I needed him, wanted to know him, wanted to find him, or anything of the sort. He existed. He may have helped in my creation, but he was not around and I was not concerned. People, if they knew, would ask about whether I wanted to contact him, etc., but I did not.
Despite all that, I will say, I always wondered who he was and what happened between he and my mother.
When my mother passed away last year [still seems surreal], she left documents that I never knew existed. Letters. Court documents. Diaries. A Valentine from ::right:: before my conception. There was a specific pile of correspondence that I found while cleaning out my mother’s house that I took with me [and my husband] to a bar and read. It was unfathomable. In a completely unexpected way.
If you knew the level of communication about my father in my house, then you would understand that my mother’s correspondence with him over the years would seem completely unexpected.
I have only read a fraction of what exists, even though not much exists, but it is still much more than I ::ever:: thought existed.
While I never wanted to find him, I have wondered about him. How could my mother be with someone who ultimately went to jail? How could he exist in a city next to mine? Who was he? What did he look like? Who was this other family he created?
Through the years, I cannot say I never googled him. I did. I wondered who this man was, but not in the way that means I wanted to know him. I just wanted to see him. Seemed a feasible thing to do in this internet age.
Unfortunately [?], I never found him.
Until my mother’s death. There were some additional clues. It still was not immediate, it was several months of casual google searches that one afternoon led me square to the face of my father.
His face. At his business. In my hometown. A town adjacent to his. A business right up the road from where I grew up. Right there. Completely unexpected. Living a life that was so much better than what I grew up in, or at least somewhat better, maybe.
I didn’t know what to expect upon finding him, but my finding him led to feelings I never imagined…
[to be continued, at some point].
May you find whatever it is you that you are looking for.
I have a father, but I rarely speak to him and I have long since given up making an effort to do so. I have called during the high holy days and his birthday, but even then we rarely connect. (My parents are living in the same house and work together, but beyond that, they don’t have any relations with each other.)
They say girls need their fathers…and for me, there is a truth to it. I spent the greater portion of my teenage years and throughout college looking for the perfect ‘father figure’.
On that note, my FIL is awesome. He’s not perfect, but he’s a great person and great father figure. Sometimes, you have to learn to make your own family. It’s not always who/what you’re born into.
I find that parents are rarely what we think they are/should be.
I probably did look for a father figure… hope that I didn’t end up that way… but can see how it plays a role, but also am blind to that.
I think though that I did find an alternate father figure when I was younger, to whom I was so grateful. I do consider him my father… and it was just as painful when he passed.
Who knows. Family, they are not the ones you choose. They’re the ones you’re stuck with. For good for ill.
I didn’t remember knowing that we shared this history in addition to our birthday. My parents also split upon my birth and my father saw me when I was 2, which I have no memory of. I did meet him when I was 17, and by that time he had 4 other children he did raise. I saw him 3 more times, the last being when I was 30. And by the time I was 32, he died of cancer. There would have been plusses and minuses if he’d been in my life growing up. I really relate to people who were adopted and meet their birth parents. There is an eery sense of the genetic contribution the parent makes who makes no other. The TV shows depict most of these meetings as positive. Mine was mixed. My father made it clear that he had no remorse for not being present in the slightest in my life. He had justified it. On the one hand, I do not understand this, or the epidemic of absent fathers, but on the other hand I often think that it might be biologically more “normal.” Like cats, they NEVER meet their fathers. I can’t imagine not meeting my father until after my mother passed, as you experienced. Nor finding out there was a secret correspondence. And I agree that we can focus on the chosen family members in our lives. I have a relationship with my father in spirit more than I ever did in his life, also.
jane, i apologize for not writing sooner… or you know, writing ::way:: late. but that’s what i do these days anyway. trying to process it all in my time. sadly, i often get sucked up in the next thing before i do. so anyway, moving on to your comment.
i will say that i have not spoken to my father yet. i found him through the internet, though i have occasionally searched for him thorugh the years. i’ve looked, but not necessarily because i want to meet him. more in a way to see/to “know” who he is. i’m not sure i can meet him or if i can just “know” of him from afar. part of me wants to know more, especially because of the information i found after my mother passed, but the other part feels as though i could never believe anything he said… even if it was the truth… so why would i pollute my head with more of his disfunction than i already have [by virtue of his absence].
i applaude you for reaching out, for meeting your father [however difficult that may have been for you] and finding out another aspect of your life, of your creation. it is a difficult reality. one that is almost incomprenshible, while understandable all the same.
i will say the odd part of all this for me is in my current life, seeing fathers who love and care for their children. it’s as if i have no concept of that. no ability to comprehend it.
I totally relate. I do not get fathers. The good or the “bad” ones. When I treat kids of divorce, I have to force myself to imagine the pain they are going through. Since I never had him in my life, while that was painful, it was different than wanting my parents to be together.
Amazing, the legacy we are “inadvertently” left with. Such a same.