I’ve never met my father. I wouldn’t know him if we passed in the street or bumped into one another grabbing a coffee. He left my mother (and me) when she was seven months pregnant. He just up and left. How could he do that? Does he have no conscience?
I often wonder if he feels guilty about it. He must have a bad conscience about leaving the woman he loved all alone at what should have been a most special time. I wonder about it a lot actually. It preoccupies my thoughts pretty much daily. What else could be so important that would make him leave? Did he need to go out and save the world? Was there something he had to do? Must have been big – perhaps he was searching for the Holy Grail – for the meaning of life? It certainly left me wondering what is the meaning of life. He must not have been fulfilled, he must have been searching for something. There must have been a void that my mother and I couldn’t fill. Perhaps love is not enough. I don’t understand that. I guess I am still young, I haven’t had a serious relationship yet, I am not old enough I don’t think, but all we get taught is to be a good person and to love everyone around us. If you create a baby, surely that is the ultimate act of love? I know I love my mum unconditionally, and my dog too.
Does he wonder about mum and me? Or does his conscience not allow it? Or has it blocked that part of his life out. Like erasing a bad scene from a movie. I don’t know how he could go on living after leaving, how his conscience would allow it. A baby was born (me!) and he didn’t care. It makes me feel guilty! Guilty that I was born. How is that fair? Sometimes I get so angry about him. It plays on my conscience-what I would say if I ever met him? Sometimes the anger rages so much I think I wouldn’t be able to speak, I might just hit him! And hard too. To try and make him feel some of the pain he has inflicted on mum and me, to share in the grief my mother had and still has I think. To see how selfish he was and just plain mean.
I can see how this anger over time will eat me alive, it will burn a hole in my stomach. I already get bad stomach cramps when I think about it too much. So I try hard not to, but it isn’t easy when every day you look in the mirror and wonder who is looking back.