When I was in kindergarten, there used to be this man I called “daddy” who’d pick up his sons at my elementary school. He’d grab his kids, and when I saw him, I’d acknowledge him as my dad. I’d run up to him, arms outstretched, enamored that a man I envisioned as my father was here at school to collect me from treachery. He’d receive me as if I was is child, but I wasn’t. He wasn't my father. He was a man sincere enough to let a child— that wasn't his— acknowledge him as “daddy”.
There was one day that I remember vividly: It was time for my “father” (I don’t remember his name) to leave with his sons, as I folded into myself at the table, heartbroken that I couldn't go home with him as one of his own. I was probably three or four at the time. In his position, how do you explain to a child that they aren't actually yours when they believe it to be true?
Looking back on my childhood, I found my tendencies to celebrate other’s fathers a bit weird. I remember walking into church one Sunday telling my mom how I wanted to get my friend’s dads gifts for Father’s Day. She glanced me over, her expression puzzled, questioning as to why I would choose Father’s day to celebrate other people’s fathers to the likes of my own? And I simply answered that they were fathers who deserved to be celebrated. And why not? I had father figures, but I didn’t have my own father.
As I grew, I never thought about how the lack of a present father truly affected me. I grew up an only child in a single-parent household. I was privileged. My mother put me in a lot of extracurricular activities. We traveled a lot. And although I was okay, I’d always felt this gap. And this gap was so large that, unfortunately, my mother couldn't fill it. It was like a delicate pull of what was always missing. When I got older, I realized that that pull was owed of my father.
I remember one specific instance where I genuinely acknowledged something was missing. Our church friends had their annual New Year’s breakfast after church, and one of the hostesses was concerned where his daughter was. It was early New Year’s morning when she’d just walked in from a party with her friends. And as soon as she did, her father rushed to her side smothering her with his fatherly concerns. His wife, the other hostess, said something to the likes of “He’s always been so protective over them [sisters] no matter how old they were”, and in my head I was confounded. Seeing that type of love a father had for their daughter was magical to me for one reason: I’d never personally experienced it.
As Father’s Day rolls around every year, of course, I’m reminded of the relationship that I never got to reap. Annually, I thank my mother in May and June for being two parents at once. Something I’ve come to understand is that you cant keep someone where they don’t want to be kept, not even where obligation is owed.
I can count on my hands how many times I’ve spoken to my father in the past 15 years. To cope, I made light jokes about how I’m so skilled at craftwork because of my father, or lack thereof. I would say how my life was sweet because I didn’t have to answer to two parents, knowing somewhere, it hurt a little. But it was concealed. Concealed under a very good life. A life I owe to my mother.