Father's Day

Yesterday was Father's Day and yes, again I found my self surfing the cyber waves of Facebook. I started to notice how many women are truly scorned. Father's Day turned into a bash fest for all of the dad's that were not in the adults lives as well as the ones who were left as single mothers of their children. I happen to be a single mother of three and my father passed away a few years ago. Now I have to say that at the start of the day I too had drunk a sip of the bitter cup. However, I quickly dismissed the thoughts that I had. My father left when I was 5 yrs old. He left my mother and I to make it on our own. My mother's profession was teaching. She also worked a second job as a GED teacher for the community college and ran her own catering business on the side. How she did it still amazes me to this day. I am sure she had her share of heartache and pain that I will never know. My dad didn't pay child support so our sole income was received by the sweat of her brow. My dad decided to pop back into my life by phone briefly when I was 19. Can you imagine that phone call. That didn't last long and he dropped off the scene yet again. The years passed and I did give him a courtesy call in 1999 when my mother passed away to let him know that she was now gone. He cried and talked about how we needed to stick together but his efforts ended when the call did. My father then popped up again a few years later stating that he wanted to come from Hawaii, his home, to NC, my home, to live. I didn't know what to make of this but none the less a glimmer of hope came when I thought we maybe able to work at our relationship, especially with my best friend, my mom, being deceased. To my surprise I was able to identify him right off when I saw him at the airport. I looked this stranger in the eye and embraced him, my hope clinging to him stronger than my arms. Then it happens. I find out that the man came all the way from Hawaii to NC just to be taken care of. He was literally crazy. He saw demons, talked of witches, saw body parts, totally unstable. To add to that, he was deathly ill. Needless to say, he was in no condition to rekindle any type of relationship. At that point, he could barely live. I often wonder if I have ever dealt with that because I can't remember the day he died. I have no idea. If I think really hard I can recount the month and year, but I have to calculate it based on other things in my life. To some this may be sad, or a poor reflection of myself, but I have to be candid. I choose not to be bitter about what has happened between my father and I. There is no use. There is nothing that can be done about it besides learning the lessons and growing from the experience. I also have three children and thought I was doing it the right way to have them all fathered by my then husband. Never in a million years did I believe I would be a "baby mama". It wasn't supposed to go this way, but it has. Therefore, I pick up the pieces and put the blame game back in the closet and deal with the decisions that I have made that drove me to this point, thank you Chris Gardner. I am victorious no matter what path my life takes because I have overcome and I am an over comer! We all suffer set backs and things happen that we are not happy about, but resilience is the key.