Before the age of fourteen, I visited with father one or two times per year. He was always like another friend to me, another person to play with. I suppose that is how you get to be when you are the absent parent — the fun parent. Anyways, I thought the world of him. When I knew I was going to see him, I would dress in my most flattering outfit and a full face of make-up. In my mind, I thought if I were pretty enough or cool enough, he would want to see me more. I thought that if I only tried harder, I would be enough for him to stay.
My father had eyes that were the color of sliced avocado, the same eyes that I see every time I face my reflection. He had a raspy laugh that was unmistakably his; a laugh that I could always recognize as my dad’s. His hair was long and brown with strays of gray from a life roughly lived. My father was an alcoholic and a drug addict, but when I was young, I thought he was my hero.
When I grew into my teen years, I saw less and less of my dad. Time would pass by, years would pass by and all I would receive was a letter, or a birthday card mailed months after it had already passed. Even though I knew this was wrong, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I told myself; it was okay, I told myself, that he still loved me. I held onto the letters that I received, making a routine of rereading them when I missed him the most. He would call me “his little, blonde bombshell,” and I felt like his little princess.
The year that I turned fourteen, my father disappeared. Not a soul knew where to find him and even though he had hurt me, I couldn’t let him go. I spent years checking for him in obituaries and prisons, but I never had any luck — he was invisible. Nightmares invaded my sleep, telling me that he was dead or sleeping on the streets. Months would go by without me thinking of my father, but he always managed to edge back into my mind.
I moved to Boca Raton when I was twenty-three to finish my last two years of college. By this time, it had been nine years since I had seen or heard from my father — not a letter was received, not a call was made. I began to forget my father’s face and I began to forget how his caterpillar eyes scrunched together when he smiled at me. Part of me had accepted the fact that he was gone, but part of me still wasn’t ready to let go of him, he was my blood.
In 2016, we found my father. He is living twenty-minutes from me at a nearby park in North Miami. My father reached out to my family and I, giving us hope that we could let him back into our lives, but the hope was false. For so many years, I thought that seeing my father again would bring me peace, but it didn’t. He only further disappointed me with his refusal to get help for his addictions.
However, hearing from him once more did spark change within me. After our brief reconciliation, I realized how lucky I am to have my mother, brothers, and sister. I realized how blessed I am to have people that want me and that I am enough for. In 2016, my father told me he didn’t want to be a part of my family, and I was glad to tell him that we don’t need him to be, that we are complete without him, and always will be.
