Daddy's Little Girl

Daddy’s Little Girl




Petals are scattered all over the ground.
“He loves me.”
“He loves me not.”
“He loves me.”
I stop there, I always do, and it’s the way I envision
the fairy tale ending. Meeting my father for the first
time in over 20 years, actually the first time ever,
was an emotional roller coaster. We had several very
brief and strained phone conversations. Yet, he told
me to meet him today. All my dreams and wishes were on
edge in anticipation of seeing and talking to my daddy
face-to-face.

Twenty-two years without meaningful contact with my
father has caused all my relationships with men to
spiral out of control. The stench of abandonment
permeates all encounters with men. I tell myself
things will change, if I can repair or at least
establish a relationship with my father. Being Daddy’s
little girl, feeling that paternal love would mean so
much.
Watching his lips shape the words. Listening to them
carefully. First they sang in whispered slow motion in
my mind; then in an amplified scream.

"I will never love you." The words were strong and
deep as they slipped from his throat. I thought I'd
seen a smile slide across his lips as he spoke. I'm
sure of it, but in these situations one can hardly
trust their eyes. A familiar, searing pain penetrated
my frame. My body shook as it always had from the
internalization of deep emotion I have yet to learn
how to express. Had I not spent all my life hoping for
his love those words might not hurt as much. Had I not
endured many tearful nights praying to be saved by a
father I had never met, I would not now be on the edge
of insanity. No strength left to pull from internally
as my mother made sure of that long ago. Do you think
cruelty knows of the power of hopelessness or the
sadness of loneliness? In a society of fantasy and
selfishness, cruelty spreads easily without cure,
hopelessness is embraced without hesitation and
loneliness kills without prejudice.
******
My thoughts swirled lazily around in my head, I find
myself incapable of handling his words. But I am past
that. I had spent a year and several hundred dollars
searching for him. Imagining a life with at least one
reliable source of love and support. Before I met him,
there was always a chance of having that and it was a
risk I was willing to take. I had imagined meeting my
Daddy and hearing him concede to his prior shortcoming
“I am sorry that I wasn’t there for you, but I want a
second chance,” were words devoid in his vocabulary.
In reality, I gambled and lost. Something I am used to
but yet the effects I am not immune from. My worst
fear took shape in the from his lips. I studied the
deep lines of age on his handsome face.
******
At the insistence of his wife, he spoke at me, rather
than to me, for many hours prior to this initial
meeting.
“How is Marsha?”
“Does she ever ask about me?“
“Is she seeing anyone?” Him asking me question after
question about my mother whom he had adored only serve
to cement feelings of resentment and rejection in my
mind. He held on to a side of her I had never known
and his love for that image of her left no room for
loving me. I had tried to tell him of the beatings she
gave, the rapes she allowed, the verbal assault she
enjoyed. He would hear nothing of it.
He would constantly remind me, “That woman is the salt
of the earth.” Rather than serve as my protector, he
chose to take the side of my tormentor.
If he only knew of the consequences of his refusal to
acknowledge my suffering.
I had spent many years wondering what he would be
like. I had imagined him to be kind, and nurturing,
understanding and strong, yet he was none of that.
Instead I found a man unable to stand up for what he
believed in. His immaturity allowed him to abandon his
responsibilities. He told me of the seven children he
had fathered and of the six mothers to whom they
belonged, including me. He told me of his own desire
to do what he wished and insisted that it had been my
destiny to find him as though he were some god I would
be lost without. I learned of a son he’d also never
met, whose mother died while he was still a child. His
life had left him sitting within the walls of the
prison system. I made a new spot inside myself for his
pain. Like me, he was a Fatherless child.
*****
There are times when one cannot even begin to
comprehend the frailty of the human psyche. It is at
these times when cruelty becomes the weapon of choice;
its force twisting and burrowing into the depths of
one’s mind; pulling from it, its worst fears; its
deepest insecurities. What then does the world see of
the wounded? The tear-stained faces of our babies;
lips curled and quivering; forever commonplace among
us. Our anger radiates in every direction and knows no
boundaries.
*****
I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until a
sleepy lightheadedness caused me to sway. He caught me
by the elbow and I quickly recovered, breathing long,
deep breaths, trying to focus on the rest of his
words. He did not acknowledge the cruelty in his
voice, even as tears slid in rivers down my cheeks. He
spoke so matter-of-factly as though he were speaking
of someone other than me. I loved him before I had met
him. It was not a knowing love like that between a
parent and a child while it’s being raised, but a
simple, connection through kinship love. He felt
nothing for his own child and that I did not
understand. He had known me for a while and had even
held me on occasion at an age which I cannot recall
any memory of him. He walked away as though I belonged
to someone else to be raised by the hands of
resentment.
“He loves me.”
“He loves me not.”
“He loves me.”
“He will never love me.”
“I have to learn to love myself.”