Motor City Hot Girl

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Happy Father's Day Dad

Today is father's day and I will spend it like I do any other Sunday. There will be visits to the cemetary like I do on Mother's Day with a dinner following prepared by my sister and I like we do on Mother's Day. My Dad, Lenny, passed away in August 2002 and I have yet to allow myself to mourn his passing. My mother's death in 1999 has such a violatile affect on me, I refused to go down that road again or is that just my reasoning?

Growing up my father was never a big influence on my life. I was raised by maternal grandparents and my parents had split when I was four. I wouldn't call him a dead beat dad because my grandparents asked nothing of him and neither did my mother. I saw him growing up frequently and we spoke on the phone a lot as I can recall. I also spent every summer with him mother in country. I actually can only really remember my father hitting me once with a belt because I didn't want to go with him and I can remember my grandfather threatening death on him if he ever hit me again. I'd come to understand later that my father physically abused my older brother, sister, and mother. I thank GOD that I never had to deal with that.

Later when I was in my early teens and my grandfather dead a few years, my grandmother sick, and my mother doing her thing, I needed my father and he wasn't there. I went to live with him for the summer (I was more like a babysitter for my younger half brothers) and he betrayed me like no father should ever betray his daughter. I won't speak of what happened because I'm not ready to share that with the world, but I will say that HE didn't molest or beat me. Something castastrophic happened to me and he turned his back and told the world I was lying. I don't know if I can really blame him for his behavior, this was in the middle of the crack epidemic and he was as turned out as one can get. I was a 14 year old girl in the world pretty much alone.

I didn't talk to my father for 3 years after leaving him and my stepmother. We started talking again after I gave birth to my daughter. My father was a changed man. He had gotten clean, went to school and got a degree in Substance Abuse, became a deacon at his church, and got a high ranking job at a local company. It was not easy for me to accept him back into my life and we had many arguments about how he hurt me. I spent the next 18 years trying to punish him for not being there for me. Whenever he didn't do what I wanted him to do, I'd be quick to throw it in his face to make him do it. Don't get me wrong, I loved my father, but I never forgave him. We were able to have many good times in the last 18 years and I have many fond memories, but I never forgave him in my heart. My kids love him dearly and to him he's the perfect grandfather, they are going to be confused and full of questions that I might not be ready to answer for them. This is the first time I'm admitting that I haven't forgiven him. I forgave my mother for all her shortcomings, but not him. It doesn't really matter much I guess since he gone now...........

Posted by Shawn :: 6:30 PM :: 11 Hollered

Holla At Yo Girl!

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