My Father Wound

Hello, my name is April and I have a Father Wound.

My parents split when I was about three years old after my father cheated and got another woman pregnant. My mother would confess much later on that she wanted to take my dad back and would have taken my dad back, but her pride and all that he did wouldn’t let her.

I don’t remember him being in the house. I have no recollection of him. I have no memory of him in the house. I used to think that this was because I was so young, but once I really started my healing journey I realized that I forgot about these early memories because I blocked them out. actually it wasn’t until I became an adult and after my father passed away that I realized just how much I had blocked out, especially when it came to my memories of him.

Interesting enough, although I’ve blocked my early memories of my father out of my head, the effect of what transpired stayed with me. It’s presence hovered over me like a dark cloud. I knew my father cheated on my mom. I knew my father disrespected their marriage. I knew my father had a baby on my mom. I knew the woman who had the baby was actually the girlfriend of my mother‘s best friend Mr. Milton. In fact, my father and this woman met at one of my mother’s dinner parties where she invited her best friend and his Plus One. But this whole was trying to be my fathers Plus One and wanted to give him a +1. It didn’t take long before they were sneaking around with each other behind my mother’s back. Behind Mr. Milton’s back. And I loved Mr. Milton. He was the homie. I was double disgusted.

Not only was I disgusted, I was very angry. Even as a child, I remember having very mature and adult like emotions. I mean not being sheltered from issues concerning adults in my life made me mature in my feelings and even how I handled them. I remember being angry. Angry at my father for the obvious reasons. But I was also angry with my mother because she chose this man to be my father. My father moving on with his new family and abandoning the children he created with his wife was a blow to my heart. Not to mention, the woman didn’t even measure up halfway to my mom. She was a hood rat. She didn’t have shit going on for herself. She was just trash. Ugh.

I think that’s what also hurt me. That my father with dip out on his uptown life to slum in the squalor with a peasant ass heaux who refused to close her legs to married men. The damage was immediate. The pain was immediate. The recoil was immediate. My icy Virgo energy towards him was immediate. I didn’t fuck with my dad after that. I didn’t wanna be around him. I didn’t wanna talk to him. I didn’t want shit from him. I didn’t want him to come and see me. And I damn sure wasn’t gonna act like everything was cool.

In fact, I totally blocked my father out of my life as a child. Baby, I have textbook Virgo cut a Heaux off, even as a child. I totally cut him off. Yes baby, at 3 years old and he knew why.

I have a memory of being 5 years old and my father trying to come home cause he missed his family.  I can still see him in our dining room bagging, explaining, pleading, and my mama not trying to hear none of that shit. Then his attention falls on me as I enter the room to see what the fuss is about. He grabbed for me but I was quicker and recoiled my little body from his grasp. Naw nigga, you don’t fuck with me remember? You went out and had a whole ass baby on me and my mama remember? I ain’t seen your ass in a coons age. Where the fuck you been Joseph? Why are you slithering your ass back over here?

I remember running around the room from him and jumping into my mother’s arms for safety away from him. Then he started crying and that scared me a little bit because I’ve never seen my father cry. Even to the day he died, he never cried in front of me or showed any emotions. He’s always been a cool as a cucumber Leo man. But anyhoo, back to his pitiful ass comeback. I was in my mom’s arms, my own little arms tightly cramped around her neck for safety. I could feel my fathers hands on my back and around my arms trying to console me and coax me into his arms.

I refused to budge. He was crying and asking my mom to give me to him (she wouldn’t) and I kept my arms locked around her neck secretly begging her not to-cause it wasn’t shit for me and this man to talk about. Even at five years old, you don’t get the same me after you fuck me over. I never let my father back in. Ever. He knew from that day that April didn’t fuck with him. I was never disrespectful with it, just very matter-of-fact & firm. It was an unspoken stance: I’m only going to let you in once. After that, you’re done.

I have memories of my father trying to integrate his children playing together and getting along. Whenever he would come to get me to spend time with me, he would have his other daughter with him. Because his family never really fucked with my mom or the children she had with my father, I was always treated differently. He never tried to correct his family or console me about it. You would’ve thought that it was ME who was the child that he had out of wedlock on his wife and not the other way around. My mom put a stop to that quick and stopped allowing me to go over his family’s house. I never forgot how they treated me and how they handled me. Even once I got older, became successful, and went on to grow into a pretty dope woman. Once they saw this, everybody wanted to come around and be my family and claim me. But I am a mother daughter, and again I am a Virgo, you only got one time to play in my face about me. So to this day it’s fuck his family too.

Oh and the child he had on my mama that they put on a pedestal over me? Oh….she’s currently kicking it in a halfway house cause sis just can’t stay out of jail. Damn, shit must suck when you bet on the wrong kid.

Welp, back to my story.

My older sisters who are much older than me and remember more than me always have great things to say about my father. They talk about how much of a family man he was (oh?) and how it was him who was the domesticated parent and not my mother who was the social butterfly. They talk about how he was the one who cook the dinner, them to school, came to their school meetings, and really took charge of the family. In addition to this, everybody would always tell me how much of a daddy‘s girl I was. This always floored me because I just couldn’t see that. I couldn’t imagine having any other relationship with my father than the one that I remember having from my first memory of him-which is also the same as me learning about his infidelity.

My father would always call me his Lollipop Girl and I never knew why. It wasn’t until after he died that I was told the story of how he would always have a lollipop in his pocket for me when he got home from work and how I would rush to the door to greet him with hugs and kisses while simultaneously patting his pockets for my treat. Even my first name, April. I was named April to symbolize the month my parents met and fell in love. But what the fuck does all of this have to do with the fact that he continued on and did what he did to tear our family apart?

Naw. Fuck him, fuck them lollipops, and fuck the name April. I hated my name before I could even write it and preferred my middle name (Nichole) instead.

And while I was saying fuck shit, I was also saying that since my mother couldn’t protect me from having my heart broken at three years old by my father, it was going to be my esteemed duty to ensure that not another nigga would hurt me again. So really from that moment, I became closed off to men. I wouldn’t let them get close to me. I wouldn’t let them get in. I was not going to allow another man to hurt me. Especially when I ain’t did shit to warrant it. When I got old enough to date, I refused to be monogamous. I only wanted to date casually. When I saw shit getting serious in the relationship or the guy getting too close, I’d abruptly shut down and distance myself. It would make me panic when I would begin to feel mushy, vulnerable, and trusting. Nope, these were my cues to get the fuck…ASAP no Rocky.

I hurt a lot of men this way. Back then I didn’t see it as hurting them because I was always upfront with them about not wanting to be in a serious relationship and not wanting to get into anything deep. I reasoned with myself that they were making an educated decision to continue on and date me so it was their fault when I finally did what I told them I would do if I ever caught feelings. My experiences with my father coupled with my experiences with my mother, coupled with my life experiences in general made me harden. I always had to be on protection mode. I always had to be in fighter mode. I always had to be alert to somebody trying to hurt me or not properly protect me. Again, I made the decision as a very young child that nobody was going to hurt me or my feelings anymore. I wasn’t going to be vulnerable with anybody. I wasn’t going to be trusting to anybody. Especially men.

Particularly men.

Even when I will try to come out of this and say I’d try relationships and opening up, I’d meet men who are a lot like my father and they would trigger me or try to hurt me. This would confirm my biggest fear and I’d start back over to my fuck these niggas tour.

In regards to my father, our relationship never recovered. I went on with my life and had no words for him. He couldn’t understand why I really wanted nothing to do with him. He couldn’t understand how one of his children, his daughter!, could be so icy to him-and STAY icy to him. I never took my foot off my father’s neck. Even up to his death, I wouldn’t. Looking back, it was me being hyper protective of my inner child. I wanted to give him the attitude, disdain, and separation that I felt my mother should’ve gave him to protect me. I gave him that plus change-and it hurt him.

It hurt him even worse once he got into his older years and wasn’t preoccupied with womanizing anymore. This is when he wanted to be a father. This is when he wanted to spend time and check up on a bitch regularly – like he should’ve been doing when I was a kid. His little feelings will get hurt when he would see that I wasn’t on that same square with him. He would act so hurt when he didn’t hear from me for days and weeks at a time. He would be so upset with me when he saw I didn’t really want to hang out with him. He would look so disappointed when I refused to hold his hand to walk across the street (like nigs, I’m 30 now. Can we not?)

I didn’t want to come over and shoot the breeze with him, I had shit to do. I didn’t call him on Father’s Day and important days to chop it up with him. I lived in my adult life the same way I lived my childhood: without him. But now the tables had turned and it was HIM who was feeling the shit. I remember him calling me one day and calling himself confronting me about it. He was talking about how he shouldn’t be the only one reaching out to me and it’s unacceptable for me not to talk to him for weeks and months at a time. Blah Blah Blah.

I told him: “Listen here baby”, (yes straight like that), “As a child, I went days, weeks, months, and sometimes years without talking to you while you was out living and enjoying your life. You have TAUGHT me how to connect with you…and that’s every once in a while. Not only have you taught me how to survive without you, you also taught me how to thrive without you.”

I had live my entire life with my father and my rearview mirror- because that’s how he lived his life with me. Now that we was middle aged, he wanted to slow down and pick up where we left off…and that was impossible. I realized one day that to my father, I was still three years old. My father (like many absentee parents) believed life was going to stop while he did whatever the fuck he wanted to do and live his life and then pick back up once he slowed down and wanted to be on daddy time.

Again, fuck him, fuck them lollipops, and fuck the name April, and fuck that shit. It really hurt my father to realize that he fucked up with me and that we could not go back to how things were. Not only could we not but I didn’t want to. I had no desire to be a daddy‘s girl. What does that get you but heartbreak and like I said, that was only gonna happen once. I was upset with my father for leaving which in my mind rendered my armor less and unprepared for life’s lessons-especially lessons that involved men.

I didn’t know the magnitude of my father wound until my father died. We weren’t on speaking terms. In fact, he was blocked. But when he died, everything that I blocked off came back to me. Memories of him young. Memories of him at home. Memories of us. Memories of me being his Lollipop Girl. It was scary. I felt like my emotions and the protective fort that I built myself was betraying me. I no longer felt strong. I was FUCKED UP. This made a little angry because what the fuck was I upset for?

I had to understand that although I was a big girl and strong…my inner child and the little girl who I had shut down as a child, was not. In fact, my inner child longed for him secretly. There would be times when he would try to get me to open up and let him in. In these times, I could feel my inner child tugging at my sleeves, begging me to give him another chance and open up…but I always refused to. In that moment, I realized that by denying him, I was also denying her.

And now that he was gone forever, she permanently missed her chance to be a daddy’s girl again.

A heaux can’t win for losing.

Or can she?

My father died when I was 35 years old. I only spent 3 years of my life with him. This was a lot to unpack. The devastation affected me more than I cared to realize…and admit. His death was also the catalyst for me to really open up my soul and heal. Open up my soul and let out my inner child who I had really held captive all my life. I amped up my therapy, allowed myself to grieve, and took the steps to heal as well as soften. Funnily, I feel closer to my father in death than I did when he was alive. After healing my father wound, I healed our relationship and fully accepted him as my ancestor. He shows up everywhere. My readings, important dates, and when I’m feeling down. I’ll see something and know it’s him. I’ll get a blessing and know it’s him.

My father does more for me as an ancestor than he did alive. A reader once told me that he too had a hard time accepting the fact that his time was up with me in life and he really failed me. I was told that it wasn’t until he crossed over that he realized the magnitude of his absence with me. Now he’s on make up time.

Now, I’m going to let him.