When I was quite young, on the surface, my father seemed to be a good one. He loved his children and played with them. He was big and strong and made me feel safe with things were scary.
The problem was that he was one of the most scary things in our lives. While he showed love and attention to his children, my mother bore the brunt of all of his anger and disappointment in life. He was mean and cruel to her in words, thoughts and deeds. There is nothing more traumatic for a child than to see their mother knocked unconscious. I kept wishing that I would grow up quick and be able to stop him from hurting her.
That she stayed with him for so many years is pretty much a miracle in itself. I was 12 when they finally divorced. My father walked away from his family with scarcely a backward glance. He headed for Florida which was one of the two states he could live in (at the same) from which my mother could not force child support.
We went from a middle class background to one of poverty overnight. My eldest sister had married and moved but there were still four of us at home with my mother who had a fairly low paying job. She refused to quit her job and go on welfare. While it was a good lesson in work ethics, it also meant that we had little medical and virtually no dental care. I almost lost my front teeth before a teacher noticed and got me into a student dental program.
My mother was also a serial abuser and, as she told me, I was her whipping boy.
I had been prescribed with glasses (which I desperately needed) but would not have the prescription filled for more than two years. While I did well in school before this happened, I found the struggle too difficult when I could not see the board from anywhere in the room. It was so bad that I learned the multiplication table by sound rather than by sight. I stopped going to school and finally, rather than give me up to foster care (which I really wanted at the time), my mother convinced my father to let me go live with him instead.
I arrived in Florida with all of my belongings, which were essentially, two shirts, one pair of pants, cheap sandals, and one set of underwear. When my father saw what I had, he immediately bought clothes to fill my needs and, within a week of arriving in Florida, I finally, after almost three years had glasses which allowed me to see and to once again start school on a good basis.
Even though I did not live with my father (he parked me with my uncle and his wife), I was much happier than I had been in years. That is, until my uncle started making advances to me. I was only fourteen and was quite an innocent. I didn’t understand what he was doing until it was almost too late. I would hide from him and glued myself to my aunts side. She was the one that finally convinced my father to move me out of their home. She told him I was misbehaving but she told me she did not want my uncle to abuse me as he had her own little sister.
I lived with my father for the rest of the year. He worked a lot and I was alone much of the time but that was okay. Things started falling apart when he started dating a new woman. The lady was wonderful and I really liked her; however, her teenage children were into the drug culture of the time.
When they went on dates, they would leave me with the older siblings. They would take the money I had for dinner and movies and buy drugs with it. They told me that they would say it was my idea (since I was worldly and from California, even though I was adamantly against drugs all my life.) They were getting into LSD at the time and one of them had a really bad trip. He was still threatening to kill himself when they came home that night. I was finally able to tell my father what had been going on. He believed me but was really unhappy to have his relationship dismantled. He started being petty with me about many things.
One morning, on the way to school, I told him what I had learned in history about the start of World War I. He disagreed with everything that I said and was really angry about it. All I could say was that what I had told him is what the school book and teacher told me.
I don’t know if it was because I didn’t agree with him immediately or if there were other factors at work but the next thing I knew is that he had hit me square across the face. He hit so hard that my head bounced off the car window behind me with a sickening crack. I sat there with blood streaming down my face and he said that I was never to disagree with him again.
I knew, as I sat there, that I had found my new monster. The one that beat my mother would be the one that would then beat me senseless. When I got home that evening, my mother called me for the first time since I had left California. She wanted me to come home. My elder brother had stolen her car and she was alone with my brother and needed help.
I made the decision to go with the monster that I knew well rather than than to go with the new monster in my life. I tread very carefully and did not disagree with my father and, when the school year ended, I headed back to California. My father was rather pleased because he could, once again, have his relationship with the nice lady back.
My first day back was the day that my mother beat me almost senseless and then gave her blessing to my newly returned elder brother to do likewise (though being careful not to hit anywhere it would show.)
I didn’t expect anything to be different but it was. It was much, much worse.
It would be years before I would speak with my father again. He came for my brother’s funeral and managed to steal belonging from my mother at that time. More years would pass and he arrived one day with a new wife and two step-sisters in tow.
By then, I was married and had two children of my own. They met their grandfather for the first and last time. From what I understand, my father was a good father to his stepchildren, providing well for them. He had no provision, love, or care left for his own children.
Apart from my elder brother who died young, we were all able to put that work ethic we learned from our mother to good use. Even more was that my two sisters and I became Christians. I can’t speak for my younger brother because religion is not a discussion point for us.
After my son died, my father contacted me once more but by email to tell me how sorry he was. After struggling with what to say to him, I turned it over to God. I was told that I was supposed to honor my father regardless of what he was and what he did. I knew that it was a responsibility of mine. So I apologized to him for not honoring him over the years.
His response was that he was not honorable. He didn’t know how to be a father because his father and mother had had him as an anchor baby in the United States and then sent him home to Greece to be raised by his grandparents while they had fun without having to raise their children.
We made up our differences and I found out that he, too, had become a Christian. He still carried the same prejudices and such but he was a brother of mine in Christ as well as my earthly father.
I never spoke to him again and didn’t feel the need to do so. I had made my peace with him and was doing as God commanded me to do. I honored him though I didn’t love him. When he passed away several years ago, I didn’t go to his funeral. It would have made a mockery of my relationship with him. My elder sister and my younger brother both had developed relationships with him and that was enough.
I had a hard time understanding the relationship of a good father because I didn’t have that in my life. That is, until I became a Christian and learned that God is my father and he is the best father there is. He wants only the best for me but will allow me to make mistakes and to learn from them though that means that sometimes I have to suffer the repercussions of bad ideas, thoughts, and deeds.
I am so blessed to have Abba father as the daddy I can turn to. I do so increasing over the years and it is this part of my relationship with God is so important to me I can’t imagine life without it. It is the work of God in our lives that can change us from sinful creatures to those who walk in God’s ways and paths.
I’ve also been blessed to see a wonderful Christian father take care of his wife and children. My son-in-law is a young Christian man who is bringing his children up well. He is infinitely patient and loves to spend time with his kids. He showers them with love while at the same time making sure they are accountable for their misdeeds. It has been a delight in my life to see this for my daughter and grandchildren.
So, as Father’s Day approaches, we should honor our fathers whether they deserve it or not. Our heavenly Father is good and perfect and just. If your earthly father was like mine, look to the heavens as I did. If you do, you will find a Good Father who loves you so much he wants to spend eternity with you.
1 John 3: See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.