not fatherless - a response to Father's Day in general

Sometimes I really hate Father's Day. Or maybe I just hate the combination of Father's Day and Facebook. Dad's who don't have a Facebook page get lots of love and adoration and praise for being the BEST father and giving the BEST advice when in reality I bet your dad is pretty okay. Okay granted there are some dads out there who are kind of super heroes but it's like GEEZE. ALL of your dads are flawless?? Ha. I'm bitter a bit.

Maybe I'm bitter cuz I wanted to write a post that said, "Well my dad skipped out on my family and left us in a state that took us 12 years to START to recover from. It's been pretty great. We can't go on vacations because there's never enough money, but you have fun in Jamaica with your new wife, Dad. No seriously, bottom of my heart, I mean it." But  you can't do that... well you can but then the little judgements start to roll in. But what I said up there is the truth. My dad chose to leave our family and take shelter with a different one and live his life when I was 13. And this is the story of a lot of the women in my family, unfortunately.

I also wanted to write that I have found men that have taken his place and shown me what it means to be a real man and I have in a way. I found Mr. Eadie, who passed away, who showed me consistency and stability and a rock solid kind of love. I found Mr. Woods (my niece and nephew's grandfather) who showed kindness and protectiveness over a family he's not actually related to. I found Mr. Dickson who just hugged me when I needed it most, which is HUGE, and gave me fatherly, Godly advice when he had no idea he was doing so. If I look hard enough there are a lot of fathers that have made a little room for me in their life and I'm truly grateful.

Being on Facebook on Father's Day kind of renewed the stigma (in my mind) that being a kid of divorce, or a kid of a single mom is a bad thing. It isn't! It makes you resilient to life and while you don't have a constant male figure in your life it doesn't mean you don't know what a good one looks like. You're able to be perceptive to what a man of standard is and what a broke ass, broke down man is. It doesn't mean you're less loved by any stretch, nor does it mean the father that left doesn't love you. I know my dad loves me - he's an idiot and I would relish the chance to punch him ONE GOOD TIME - but he loves me. And I have a Heavenly one who takes care of me at all cost, so much more than I realize.

Never assume you're not loved is what I'm saying. To the kids without dads, you're loved beyond imagine. We're not damaged, we're not BROKEN, we're simply loved.