two sisters wrote:Growing up there was me, my sister, my moma and my nanny (that’s what we called my grandmother). My daddy came over everyday but he didn’t live with us. My daddy died when I was seven years old.
Question:
A father figure in a woman’s life has so much to do with a woman’s expectation of a man. The absence of a father figure has an even greater impact. What kind of impact did your father or the absence of your father have on you?
Every little girl harbors dreams of her father. Perhaps this is my assumption, but whether or not she ever knew him, it is my belief that she desires to know him. I believe that a father, or the lack thereof, greatly influences the way in which a woman grows up to see herself, the woman that she ultimately becomes, and the men that she comes to have relationships with.
I grew up knowing my father because he was there . . . most of the time. In and out, after the many times he left us, or mama left him, he was still there. I knew him, and I lived with him, most of the time. I loved him dearly, and he loved me, but he was in no way the perfect father. It seemed that he loved me unconditionally -- no matter what I did, no matter how I messed up, he never stopped loving me. Without a doubt, he was the coolest man I have ever known, with his chronic weed smoking self, he was loving, he was funny, and he was what many would consider to be a workaholic. He worked with big, strong hands installing draperies and designing custom window treatments for fancy, rich people’s homes. He was considered to be “a good catch,” the perfect husband, or so they thought. The white women lavished him with praise and adoration, and he soaked it up like the air he needed to breathe. He was strong then, lean, dark, tall, and he was fine. All the women loved him, especially my mother, cause he was a seemingly good natured, generous, creative, and a hardworking black man, but, with all those attributes -- he could also be very demanding, temperamental, even brutal, and physically abusive at times. Too many times as a young girl growing up, I witnessed the aftermath of the horrific beatings inflicted upon my mother. The time he broke her nose, and she would yell, scream, and cry for her mother to save her, I watched crouching from the shadows of my bedroom wondering when she would ever fight back. I think I hated her more for not fighting back, and it was then that I vowed to never let a man beat me like that. He left us then, for the first time. I remember to this day how I cried. It seemed as if I would never stop crying for my father. It was as if he were leaving me, forever. I watched him leave from the downstairs window, and I just cried as if my world had ended. Even though this man viciously and brutally inflicted such pain upon my mother, I still loved him with all my heart . . . and he was still my father. I hurt because he hurt, and this has not changed to this day.
I remember how mama loved him too. She loved him to the point where at the tender age of 13, she fed him chocolate cake while hiding him under her bed. Conceived at the tender age of 14, in the early 60’s, I was their first love child. Daddy and Mama showed me what real love looked like. It was fun, and it was sweet. They were young, and they were playfully and tenderly devoted to one another. She doted on him, and brought his dinner on a special tray to eat while watching t.v. on the living room couch. She even let him put his big feet on her lap, clipping his toenails as they kissed all the time. He pulled her close and they’d dance, and they laughed. Then, without any advance notice he got out his electric drill and his tool belt, and began to build something fantastic in our home with his big, strong hands. To me, this is what love looked like.
Even though he was not perfect by anyone’s standards, he was still the man that set the standards for me and the bar by which most men that eventually would come into my life would be measured. My father took me on my first date at 16, and helped me to understand the imperfections and the weaknesses of men. As I watched him deal with his inner demons and drug addictions that ultimately took his life at age 61, I became a woman. I became a woman who saw a man that needed a woman to be strong, and to be sure of who she is -- no matter what. I became a woman who saw a man that needed a woman to be strong against all odds, but who must also be loving, forgiving , and wise.
As odd as it may seem, and it does seem odd to me, even today, I personally held a grudge against my own mother for years because of the weaknesses that I thought she had within her. I resented her, and I believe I was mad at her because she did not fight back – not then. It was years before she found the strength to fight back, and by then, we all just wanted her to stop. Their marriage long over, carried residuals that spilled over into my life impacting me deeply. Deep within, I know that the woman that I am today is directly related to the people that I have come to know and love growing up. My father, and yes, even my mother -- helped me to become the woman that I am today.
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