The Void Never Filled...The Yearn For a Father

To Whom This May Concern,

 

I have memories that have haunted me for years, memories which made me cry every night in bed, memories that dug a hole so deep into my heart that left my life empty… and it all started when I was six.

I was an only child. My whole world consisted of two people, my mom & dad. My mom was an angel and my dad, well my dad was my hero, the defeater of all evil, and for the first six years of my life he reigned as king. He never missed a birthday, he never missed a goodnight kiss, and most importantly he was always at my side when I called. My dad was my best friend.

Now I don’t know when my world fell apart. No matter how much I try to remember, I still don’t have an answer. I knew my parents argued, but things always seemed to be fine the next morning… But I guess it was all an act because a few months after my sixth birthday my dad vanished before my very eyes. No one had prepared me for this….. What happened? For days I was in shock, my little mind could not comprehend what was going on. My dad…. left? Where? Why? When was he coming back?

For a while I stayed in denial, I waited by the door all day, I didn’t get any sleep because I was looking out my window for him. How could he forget about me? …. I thought he loved me? After several weeks it finally sunk in.... he was gone

For months I always kept hope my dad would come back and say “I got lost” or simply “I missed you.” After a while I composed a prayer that went:

Father,

Help me bring back my daddy

Father, save him!

Can’t you see how much I need him?

I will do anything in return; I’ll clean my room,

Try hard at school, I’ll be good! I promise you

Father, I pray to you.

I recited that prayer at least three times a day. Hoping he’d come back. Weeks passed, then months, I finally understood it, he wasn’t coming home, no matter what I said.

            About seven years passed. I stopped waiting for him at the door, no longer did I crawl into my mom’s bed and curl into a ball on what was his side of the bed. I simply accepted that he wasn’t coming back. But just when I thought I overcame this obstacle, my mother calls me into the living room, sat me down, and told me she thought I was old enough to understand what happened……My Dad had left me, for another woman. A woman who he had an affair with, a women 10 years younger than my mom, and whom he got pregnant. “NO” was all I could say, this could not be, I broke down in tears, I refused to believe it! But as quickly as tears fell, they stopped. Rage took over my very soul. All this pain inside of me rekindled. But no longer was it simply pain, it was fury and of the utmost toxic.

            Since that very day I made it my duty to find him, to scream in his face how much he hurt me, how much pain he inflicted on me, how destroyed he left me. How could he do that to me? to my mom? I was only six years old, SIX! The months I cried meant nothing to him, I meant nothing to him, I was nothing to him! Not once did he call! I followed every lead I had, every source of information I had on him, ‘til I hit the jackpot. BINGO. I found him.

            He lived in a small house in Bergen County, New Jersey. I drove two hours to from Rhode Island to his home eager to scream to the seven winds everything to his face. And just as I pulled up I saw him, It was really him, my father, my best friend, my hero, walking out his front door with two young girls in his arms. This was his family. This is what he left me for; this is who he replaced me with. I admit I began to cry. Not only did I begin, I sobbed for about two hour’s straight. By this time he had already left, to work I imagine. I composed myself and thought it over, no matter how much he destroyed me and killed me, these children had nothing to do with it. They probably don’t even know of my existence. I could not cause a scene in front of them.

            So I decided to write a note, as cowardly as it seems, it’s probably the best thing I could have done. Not let that scum of a man even see me, let him hurt inside when he reads this note, on how he killed a child’s life, how he ripped the soul right out of her the day he left. How he left a void so deep inside her that no matter how she tried to fill it just resists to be filled. How she yearned for a father but never got one. How its 15 years too late to ask for forgiveness and it 15 years too late to act like he ever cared. To let him know that I was not six anymore, I don’t believe in knights in shining armor, nor do I believe in a makeshift land where unicorns live. That I know my left from my right, the good from the bad, and my up from my down. How to tie my shoes and how to fight, how to drive a car and how to take care of myself. I’ve grown up a fine woman without his help. And for that I thank you. And to live in peace for I forgive you.

 -TheDaughterYouNeverCaredFor