TITLE: Forgotten By Spencer McDonald 07/20/05 |
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Daddy
Surely I met you as I was born into this world. Don’t all kids meet their fathers when they are delivered screaming and kicking? Staring straight at me every day is a picture taken of you and I before I could walk, talk, or become broken hearted. The picture seems so filled with love. Was that love just a vanity for sowing some seeds and producing a small package who looked just like you? Did you bring me into the cold harsh world just so your ego could be fed, then abandon me like a 1976 Ford Pinto? Many stories and time past have answered my questions.
What hurts most is the fact that you erased me from your memory. You denied my existence when asked. I know you did because I was told. Just hearing such a tale sends dark pangs of sadness right into my warm heart. When asked to accept your flesh and blood son you turned and chose another. Oh daddy that stings like a thousand stingers from a colony of irritated wasps. Those stings have paralyzed my heart to feel love.
Daddy, the rivers of the past have flowed by and you can’t say you’re sorry. Too much time and pain have rushed by. You can’t say it was a mistake or that you have been born again and now you regret your actions. The truth is told. Deep inside your mind and heart you did mean to turn and walk away from me. You did intent to forget all about your flesh and blood son.
Like a pulsing light calling my name I was always beckoned back to you. After all you were my biological father and some magical connection kept prodding me back toward needing you. It was as if I was programmed to have to miss you. As if I had to wonder what I did to push you away. I wondered thoughts like, “Will you call this birthday or this Christmas day?” My phone never rang. Your voice never traveled across phone lines and into my waiting ears. Daddy, I would have dug deep into my piggy bank and paid any rate just to hear you reach out and touch me with your voice. You never called. Why didn’t you call daddy?
At seventeen my fantasies of your reunion with me had live on long enough I called. Daily thoughts of you making an effort to reconnect with me were torturing my daily life. I guess I just felt like calling you might have made me feel better. It was like a fantasy come true. You did open up your arms and welcome me back as your son. Finally, the last piece of a confusing jig saw puzzle had been set in place. It looked like my puzzle would be a complete picture. My perfect picture only last but a short time.
During our brief connection we never really connected. The river that flowed between us was too wide and too deep to sustain our relationship. During our two year reunion you did your very best to buy my love with great material gifts. What I really wanted from you was free. I only wanted to reach out with your arms and say, “I love you.” Time has moved on like a freight train over the mountains. Now I am forty years old and still waiting for those simple three words to embrace me and bring my soul in from the cold. Daddy, how long do I have to wait?
My hopes will not be raised. I know deep in my heart that you only want to forget. You only want to dismiss me as a single mistake in time. Being a father myself I know it could be so easy to run and hide from responsibility. Daddy, I can’t run. My kids would never forgive me. The guilt that followed me around from such a devastating act would slowly kill my heart and the hearts of my flesh and blood kids. Yet I wonder, daddy, does that same guilt follow you around? Or, daddy, do you even care that I am around in your image?
Daddy, what you did to me is regrettable. I can’t shake the sorrow I feel for never knowing your love. Too forgive you is hard. Many people have trespassed against me throughout life; yet forgiving you is the hardest thing I have ever attempted. You stabbed my soul with your blade of selfishness and desertion. What kind of a father is able to abandon their son like you did?
You created me to look just like you in physical features, thoughts, and abilities, but I have chosen to have one thing you never had – a heart. So daddy, will I forgive you for leaving me helpless in a world so cold and cruel without the guidance of a loving father? I can’t! I won’t! Even if I could, I would never see you again. Not on this planet.
Since many years have passed you are now only a smoky figure who resides in a distant memory. Beyond this world, if we do find out that there is life after death and all are reunited I only hope for one thing and that is that you would acknowledge me and say, “I’m sorry son – I love you.” I know this is only a dream and would never happen and should it, I will be the only one in hell wearing a parka as it freezes over.
Spencer
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