At the kitchen island one morning, after having a casual conversation with my son about Father’s Day celebration this year, he said…
“I don’t know what it’s like to have a father, Mom.”
My heart stopped beating, or maybe I stopped breathing. I can’t remember now if you asked me. But I was washed away by a tsunami of emotions right there and then. I felt guilty, first of all, for not providing him with a father, or a father figure since we left his father. I used to think that my son’s uncles might be able to fill in; spend time with him growing up, play with him, teach him a thing or two. But I never asked any of my male siblings to do that, nor did I know how it could have worked.
My first response to my son was, “I’m sorry, sayang. I’m so sorry. I really am. It’s my fault.” I was sorry, I really was. What he said cut me deeply. The honesty was too much and yet it was perfectly enough for me to feel its truth. My son could not have put it in any other way. He just does not know what it is like to have a father. He hasn’t had one since he was four. It was as raw as it got — the statement, the feeling, the truth. He simply did not know what it was like to have a father. He had none. Pure and simple.
Edrick assured me it was not my fault because his father was still alive and kicking. Us leaving his father was my decision but the father not being in the kids’ life was purely his choice. Although I reminded Edrick that his father did put him through school until 2018, it was not really what he meant by “what it’s like to have a father”. Anyone could pay for his education, he said. But Dad never really wanted to be Dad other than that.
He wasn’t sad saying all this to me that morning, at our kitchen island. In fact, he was just stating the fact as facts appeared to him. This was his reality. He accepted it and he was just telling it. As it was. And these whole 13 years I never looked at my own kids going through life as fatherless. Never!
Until then.
Questa è Enida 