A Journey of Forgiveness, Part Two...

(Since Father's Day is approaching, I am reposting this series of three posts I wrote about my relationship with my Daddy.  You can read part one here.)

Daddy and his wife moved into a tall, white dilapidated Victorian house with plum trees growing in the yard. His wife and he adopted and raised her two grandbabies, a little girl and a little boy. In my heart, I felt like my Daddy had not only traded Mama for someone else, he had replaced me and my little brother, who were the two youngest in our family, as well.

Sunday afternoons were supposed to be our visitation time with Daddy. When Daddy came and picked us up and took us to a movie or out to pizza, just him and us, it was a good visit. If we went back to his house so he could putter around there doing chores, I hated it. I didn’t feel welcome there, in Daddy’s house with his new wife and kids. His wife never cooked a meal for us that I can recall. I remember snacking on saltine crackers spread with margarine and grape jelly because I was so hungry. Their house was dirty and disheveled and smelled like urine from their kid’s wet clothes. My Mama was a very good cook, and kept our house nice and clean. I couldn’t figure out why Daddy traded Mama in for someone who didn’t do either one.

On Sunday afternoons I started to develop a habit of telling Mama I didn’t feel good, so then I didn’t have to go to Daddy’s. As I grew older the visits got even less frequent as I got involved in our church youth group that met on Sunday evenings. The Daddy that, as a little girl, I had adored and I were becoming strangers.

The one thing I never stopped doing for my Daddy was praying. Mama had gotten us kids involved in a good church when Daddy left. I knew that Daddy had loved Jesus at one time, but I figured that when he had left us, he had left Jesus too. I didn’t know back then, that Jesus doesn’t let go of people all that easily.

A girl needs her Daddy during the turbulent teen years. Daddy wasn’t there to advise me, guide me or protect me during the turmoil of puberty, to meet the boys I dated, or to comfort me when I got a broken heart. By God’s grace, however, I got through junior high and high school relatively unscathed and graduated third in my class. Just before I left for college the following September, Daddy gave me his one and only piece of fatherly counsel, “If you go off and get yourself pregnant, I’ll kick your behind.” I think the door of my heart slammed shut and padlocked tight with the hurt that those were his parting words to me.

{to be continued…}

Still following,