March 6, 2013

My mother had me when she was 21, that was in 1959.  She was married to a construction worker, irish medium build, dark hair and alcoholic.  He would go to the bars before he would come home and spend his paycheck.  He would invite his friends to come home with him and try to get my mother to have sex with them.  Obviously, he was a real stand up kind of a guy.  Why my mother got pregnant with my little brother is beyond me, but she did and it was during that pregnancy that she left my wonderful father.  She went home to her parents, my grandparents and from there things were continually unstable except when I lived with them. 

I remember going with my mother to court in Los Angeles one rainy dark morning.  As usual she was angry and driving like someone that needed to have their license taken away, yelling at everyone on the road until finally she took the off ramp down the hill turned right and spun out of control into the enbankment with yellow wet grass thrown up on the windshield.  I had braced myself with my feet against the dash and my knees in my chest, not cool.  She pulled out and we continued to the courtroom where a tall man in a plaid coat came up to me and said hello.  I had no idea who he was or why we were in this tall building with wood walls and benches and a big wood bench at the front with a man in a black robe staring back at me.  I didn't say anything back to him, I didn't know him.  I wouldn't find out until years later that that person was my father, and the building was a court, he was being brought into court for child support of which he never paid and I didn't see him again until I was 19 years old. 

At the age of 19 I was sitting in the probation office typing a report about a teenage boy who had stabbed another teen to death at a party, that was my job, transcribing the probation officers notes into reports, how fun.  It was lunch, a man peeked his head through the door and said "Are you Cindy?"  I said "Yes, can I help you?"  I was used to people checking in, making appointments and doing various other things, it was no great event to see a man at the door.  He just stared at me.  I asked again "Can I help you?".  He said I'm Jackie (I had no idea who that would be)  "Jackie Perkinson, I'm your father".  Well let me jump for joy a happy reunion (I say that with the utmost sarcasm).  "What do you want?" I asked.  Well, he wanted to say hello and visit.  Whatever.  So we talked a moment and then it came out, he had been called by the District Attorney's office for child support (this was before there were computers where they actually kept a tally of monies owed, apparently his got archived into the oldest archives, probably with Moses).  He let me know that he had called my grandmother to talk to my little brother but she wouldn't let him.  So he proceeded to let me know he didn't need that,  he had two perfect sons in Phoenix Arizona.  Phoenix Arizona, 160 miles away from me, really.  Needless to say when he said that I told him that he hadn't helped with my brother since his birth, therefore, he withdrew all rights to any criticism regarding his progress in life.  Then I explained that we were done talking and he needed to get back on the freeway and head east, my daddy was my grandfather, he was nothing to me. 

That was the last time I ever saw him and during my childhood and early adulthood I fully believed children didn't need their fathers.  I didn't have a father I always argued, how can you miss something you never had?  There was no feeling for him, there was nothing. 

However, as I have continued to age and have worked with children I have learned that there were holes in my development due to the lack of having a father.  There were things I never learned or experienced.  I never had a father kiss my face or hold my hand or teach me anything, or just love me unconditionally without alterior motives.  I watched children especially girls who had their fathers and I realized they were learning from a healthy adult male what having a trusting safe relationship was like. Of course this requires having a healthy relationship with a mentally and emotionally healthy father, I didn't have that and when it came time for a stepfather I didn't have that then. 

I was jealous of the covering of protection and genuine love these girls had from their fathers and I watched them beam as though they were overflowing with love from him.  I wasn't jealous as though I hated them, but I wanted that kind of love too, but I didn't know how to get it.  Boys can't give it and when you become an adult woman men can't give that to an adult woman, it'd be wierd. 

However, I learned that my relationship with God could give it to me, He was able to fill the hole and love me unconditionally when others couldn't or wouldn't. 

I understand why women do everything they can to keep the fathers of their children at home, even if they aren't healthy mentally or emotionally, meaning they are addicts or abusive.  They hope it will somehow turn around and magically be fixed and then their children will have what they see other children having.  It doesn't work that way.  Even under the best circumstances of picking a mate, they may decide not to love you later, I've seen it.  I say pray, let God do the picking and pray and then pray some more.  And if you don't really know what to do.....pray again.  God says he'll direct our steps and I believe it.  He says he has plans for us with an expected end, plans with a future, I believe that too.  And while they are unfolding, we learn to trust Him and wait and see the good things He's giving and understand that he gives us the desires of our hearts, I believe that too.