Cabin Fever

My Dad Never Called Me Son

12/10/02

I grew up in a single-mom household.
I learned to be "the man of the house."
I also learned never to ask for much;
there wasn't much to choose from,
growing up on welfare and food stamps.
Saw my dad on occasion.
I remember waiting for him when he'd never come,
or when he was late,
or when he stiffed us one Christmas,
or on all the child-support court fights
my mom would rail against him about.
When I finally tired and left her
to move in with him,
it was at my stepmother's request
and for all accounts, she's an angel.
He was unimaginable.
He sets examples still, to the day,
and once in awhile I catch a glimpse
of me
as my father's son.
Stereotypically. Homogenic and pasteurized.
I never asked for that much.,
I just wanted a place
within me
that I could call my own.
One where I would be the one
to hold myself responsible
for who I was to become.
I didn't need a family tree
and I sure didn't want genetics
telling me the way things would be.
If this is my life and he took no say before,
then who is he now,
being just a dad but not a father,
to try to compromise anything I choose?
Time and patience have eased into some forgiveness,
but when I sit down
and write in the big book that is my life,
who am I sparing by leaving out the earnest details?
I've got nothing to hide, dear dad;
your past more checkered than mine.
But this detail,
obvious now more than ever, sticks out.
The connotations of words,
their meanings and they way they're said
will always haunt me.
The smallest lack of love ever shown, dad,
forgetting child support, Christmases and uninvolvement,
is in the way we look at each other, dad,
my sharing namesake
with the man who also shares the name
that you refuse to have contact
let alone final conflict with,
is that you've never called me son.