Click here to listen I woke up this morning with this song on my mind. Then I went to facebook and some one had posted the same link. Small world. However the context the person had posted the link was far different than the link in my mind.
Like most, actually all, people, I had a father. I knew him. Or I thought I did. A very wise woman once told me, "You never really know anyone, you only know of them. You know what they let you see." And so it was with my father. He was a lot older than my mother, but the wedding picture shows a very happy woman. My mother was very well liked in high school and married soon after she graduated. Sadly that marriage did not end well and soon she returned to her roots and married my father. He was a widower (? but some secrets are best left untold). He had 3 sons that were past their teens. They had been put into an orphanage when Dad's first wife died. 2 were adopted, one was not.
Jake was the first born to this union followed by me, Donna, Mary and Dorothy. We were all as different as night and day. Jake was the only son and he was a screw up according to my father. Of course I was perfect, but he never did particularly like me much. He was of the old school that kids were to be raised and leave home. Now just look at me! Wasn't I the cutest thing you ever seen?
Donna was smack in the middle so she had middle child syndrome. Dorothy was the baby, so she carried those tendencies throughout her life. Ah, but Mary. Mary was cute and delicate and everyone loved Mary. Now you must understand that this is being written by me and is my feelings. I am sure if the other sisters were alive they would dispute my findings, but you must realize that we are all a product of our raising and I never at any time ever in my life ever thought my father cared about me in any way shape or form. It was as if I existed in a vacuum. If he was there he ignored me. He refused to attend my first marriage. I simply did not exist.
Ah, but he had a weakness. He liked babies. Shortly after the birth of my first daughter he paid my older sister to sew her a pretty red dress and he bought shoes and a hat to match. Some where I have that picture of him holding Debra when she was about a year old and wearing that outfit. That is the only one of my children he ever touched. I don't recall him ever touching me in anger or love. I never actually had a conversation with the man. If I fell and skinned my knee that was my problem.
And then he died. By this time I had the 3 girls. I left them with my sister in law and came home for the funeral. I remember how very sad that was. I stood at his open coffin and cried my heart out for a man I never knew. I do not think a child ever understands their parents and I envy the children who played catch with their fathers. Or took walks. Or went fishing. That is why I always tried to keep my kids and their father in close contact. He and I had a strained relationship, but he and the kids found a way to make it sort of work. We sort of shared custody, but that is water under the bridge.
I do remember far in the back of my mind, that dad was a share cropper with a man named John Britan. John had acreage across the river and sometimes (and I will never know why) I would go with dad to the acreage and John Britan would make me hot chocolate using cocoa, sugar, hot water, and Pet milk. It was the best stuff in the world! I have tried to make it but it is never the same. I also remember that there was a little creek that run through the farm and sometimes it had water in it. Jake made me a little boat out of a flat piece of wood. He put a stick through a hole and tied a string to it so it would not get away.
So, as sad as my childhood was, I do have some good memories. I just forget them sometimes.
