Be a Man

I'm going through a tough time.

I was walking home a couple weeks ago. I live next to a school with a park; naturally there are going to be kids and parents run amuck through the open fields of play. I overheard a conversation between a father and daughter who presumably lived within my neighborhood. The girl couldn't have been older than 5 or 6, and the father was in either his late 30's or early 40's (drug use could have made him look older, but who knows). Besides that, I had no idea who either of them were. All I heard passing by on the brisk evening was the following conversation:

"Do you love mommy?"
"Yeah!"
"Do you love daddy?"
"Nu-uh!"
"Why don't you love daddy?"
"Because you're always gone, daddy. I never see you."

That scene has replayed in my head many, many times since then. Every time I hear the young girl's reasoning, so rich and innocent with childhood, it makes me think of myself as a child. The life I have lived.

My own father.

I grew up like most children. A mom and a dad under one roof. Plain and simple. Around the age of 6, I started seeing my dad less. There wasn't a lot of contact with him. I lived with my mother and grandparents mostly, I only heard from my dad. He was always working. I never thought anything of it. I was just...too young, I suppose. The best days of my childhood were the days where I got a call from my dad, promising a day to spend with him. A fantastic, fun filled day of swimming at a friend's house, going out on the town, or just spending time on a drive. It seemed like even those days were filled with sadness. "I have a little bit of work to finish," a phrase that defined my childhood memories. I would sit in a stranger's house, watching my father work until the sun sank deeper than my heart behind the horizon. But on the occasion, he would keep his promise. I would spend time with him. Those few magical times. The times where I felt recognized. The times where I loved him.

And he loved me.

I moved away from California and began seeing my dad less. Contact would soon fade away. When I would visit, it felt like a new beginning. Things had changed. We would go out on the ATV and pick fresh wild raspberries through the open vineyards of California wine country. Instantly I would feel like a kid again. My dad and I. Together. Happy. I felt safe and secure, meeting fantastic new people that my dad associated himself with whom loved me so. I felt it was a new start.

Things changed.

I haven't seen my father since summer of 2010. I haven't heard from him in nearly a year. The father I once knew and looked up to with gleaming childhood ambition is now what seems to me a perfect stranger that is roaming amongst the Earth, oblivious to the existence of a living and breathing child whom he claims responsibility for.

It hurts.

It hurts me, knowing that I have grown up with no male role model in my life. It hurts me, feeling like I am not important to the very person who many argue is the greatest influence in your life. Perhaps, it hurts me most of all to understand that I am not alone. My own tale is one that is belittled and negligible to the hundreds of thousands of millions of children who have grown up without a father. Even worse, lived with a father who was always there, but only to physically and mentally abuse them into a spiraling torment of darkness. My heart truly extends to those who have experienced anything to the likes of myself or any other extreme. The sad truth is that this epidemic of fatherlessness is spreading unavoidably. Responsibility is at an all time low. Teenage pregnancies are skyrocketing and there is little consequence to the father who thinks it's acceptable to live anonymously. Well I have a message for you.

Be a Man.

How dare you. No, even further, and personally from the bottom of my heart. Fuck you. Fuck you. Your actions cause the absolute degrading of a human life, the bastardization of a child who only wants to know why the hell he can't have his dad come in for career day or where dad is and why he isn't here. Life instantly becomes a broken reality with a missing half that cripples you each and every single day, every minute, every second. Emotion is stricken into a retreat of worthlessness and pain of bearing the scar that you are without something that seems like everybody has but you. All because you thought this was a game. All a fucking game. Step up and do your part. Be there for your children. Cherish every bit of them and never let them out of your sight. They need this love. The attention and affection no one else gives. With that love and care, maybe they wouldn't end up with the burden of never feeling good enough for anyone or feeling lost when you just need someone to be there for you. And there's no one.

I wish you knew that, dad. More than anything.