So having grown up without a father I never quite made a big deal about it really. I’d visits my aunts (moms sisters) and be expected to call their husbands ‘dad” and it seemed only normal cause my cousin’s called them dad, so it just sounded ok. Funny enough my confusion of not having my own father still had not quite meant a thing.

The realization came to me when in the 7th grade I started my period and my mom shouted at me asking if I had just had sex, leading to the bleeding and not thinking that at 12 years old my period should be expected. It dawned on me that my mother had always been so hard and disconnected, not being that loving nurturing woman that other kids would describe their mothers as in our ‘show and tell’ sessions in class.  In her defence I’ d say well she’s trying so hard to close the gap of a fatherless home that she ended up ruining that ideal “motherly” image. I never connected with her in a mother- daughther way and its created this messy woman I have become.

I began resenting this man for not being there to be the hard, stern protector that my mother was trying to become, making me lose out on the soft, gentleness and pure love that I should have received from my mother.

The day that a family relative touched me the way that my mother should have touched me I got confused as to whether what he was doing was really wrong because he did it with such care, in a way that made him smile and ask me if I liked it. “This is normal” as I would tell myself because he is smiling while doing this, then it should be done. I didn’t tell my mom though cause I thought it would anger to know that there is some one who actually touched me with so much patience and pleasure knowing that when she did bath me or lotioned me would always be in a hurry and shouting at me to get up and finish up.

It was later when another touched me, but him so angryily that I realized that even the previous touch from the family relative was never done for me but for him.

Born in 89 and never paying much attention to my surroundings, I’m not sure if this was consciously or not but for some strange reason my mind just didn’t register to many things, like the fact that other kids came from normal nuclear families, and I on the other hand did not have a father.

I remember the day before I went to the first grade, my aunt, who was supposedly my dads sister came to visit and see me into school, also not forgetting to instill in me my paternal roots and tell me of my “proper surname” which at 7 years old I had never heard before. So without much confusion I got to school the next day and introduced myself to the teacher using this newly found surname that I still was not quite sure what its significance was. So it turned out that a person by that name was not registered, I went home disappointed that I could not start my first day of school with other kids, not realizing the war that it would later create in my mind and in my interaction with men later on.

#My fatherless upbringing.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton