For My Father, I hope you can read

There is so much damage that can be done to a child who does not have the right tools as he/she grows.

Sometimes we have all the material things, a traditional family (mom, dad and child), one parent (a mom or a dad) or an adoptive parent (strangers who become your own flesh and blood) to help mold us into the person we are today.

The reality is there is a child somewhere who does not have any of these things.

The effects of an absentee parent can never be ignored. I am grateful enough to never had a biological father in my life and came out without any ‘daddy issues,’ as psychiatrists and people like to put it.

I had a grandfather who loved me as much as he loved his own children. An uncle, who every time he was around treated me like a daughter and not like a niece. A few random men who made it their duties to care for me emotionally and financially as if I were their child.

Maybe all of this saved me and for that I am thankful.

But daddy I have a few questions that have been boggling my mind:

• what did I ever do for you to think I do not deserve to have you as a part of my life?
• why do you think it was ok to not give me your love?
• why do we have no bond, even though I tried to create one when I was older?
• why is it so easy to go about your day without thinking of me?
• why was is it so easy to take care of all the women in your life but not me?
• why did we live minutes apart but you never showed up unless you were being paid to deliver sand at my house?
• why did you be a father to my sister but not to me?
• why did you not be a father to my other sister who is living with your parents but you are a father to another child who was born around the same time? Are we both excluded from your life because we have things in common?
• why did it take a strange lady to encourage you to make me a part of your life?
• why did you let my mom struggle even though you could afford to care for me financially?
• why did you left your responsibility up to other men?
• why did you had to let my aunts and uncle had to help my mom financially?
• do you ever remember that you have a child who is existing in some part of the world?
• why is it so weird that I do not think of you? Is it because you also do not think of me?

This is for my father and I hope you can read.