Broken Promises

Chapter 3 - Going to Be a Father

All my life I wanted one thing more than all others - to be a father. I cannot explain why. Maybe it was because of how I looked up to my father, a man who loved and sacrificed for his family. He represented all that is good in the world. He showed love, wisdom, and authority. He has been the center of all that is right in my life, and he remains so.

Your Papa has been the single most pivotal force in my life. He was willing to sacrifice everything for his family. His family was his reason for being. By watching him, I learned that a man's purpose was his family and to do anything for those you love. He was more than he appeared to be. He worked his entire life in a factory, but he could have done more, such as going to college. He could have been anything he wanted. He was always willing to put his family first. Maybe this is why I saw fatherhood as the most important thing in life, and yet it is the one thing I will never have.

My parents were not perfect. They would be the first to admit that. They did not make much money, but I never thought of us as poor. We never went without what we needed. I only knew we were not rich, and that was fine. My little sister suffered from severe arthritis and was in continual need of medical care. Still, I never remember my parents complaining, and my sisters and I never noticed the struggles they had to overcome. They made sure of it.

I never questioned that my dad loved me more than anything or anybody in the world, except maybe my mom. She is his universe. It always made me happy to hear him say how much he loved her. They were a foundation, a fixed point in the universe. When things made little sense in the world, there was always that foundation to fall back on. That is what I wanted in a spouse. My foundation building alongside her foundation, a single, stronger unit able to withstand the trials that would come in life and marriage. I wanted people to say at my memorial service, "He loved his family and his wife with all he had and made them the happiest people to have ever lived."

Your Nana is just as formidable. She remains a strong woman who was your typical southern momma. She loves her family completely. She worked hard every day of her life. I recall the pictures of her a few weeks after I was born. The look of tiredness and fear in her eyes. Those eyes now show a woman who has faced all the world has to offer and survived. They show a woman who has shed more tears that any Nana should ever have to, having lost so many friends and family who occupied precious places in her heart.

At fifteen, I imagined my life. I have my doctorate, a wife to love, and I have a daughter. I am sure a son would have made me just as happy, but I always wanted my daddy's little girl. That was my daydream. It may sound silly to some, but it was true. It still is true. Those three things were all I needed, and all I need, to be happy; however, now the term daughter merges to family as I do not feel I can ever have, or at least do not deserve to have, another child. I achieved my doctorate years ago, and the degree and professional success feels empty without a family to share it with. I want to look back at my life as complete. That is all I want. I want someone to love, and I want to be loved in return.

The one thing you need to know more than all else is that I wanted long you before you were born. I have typed this over and over throughout this letter, and it remains true. You deserved so much more. You deserved to smile, laugh, play, grow up, have children. You deserved to have your own daydreams. Your existence was inevitable. My failure as your father should not have been.

June 1998

I have no exact memory of being told I would be a father. My mind has erased that bit of history along with so many others. I remember being so happy as I called my parents to tell them. We called them first. I think we told them when you were around three months along. I was so excited, as were they. They would have their first grandchild. Those entire nine months were the happiest of my life and, honestly, the last time I was truly happy. I was the proudest man to walk the face of the Earth. God loved me. He had blessed me.