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A Daughter's Anger

I am angry. This evening I spoke to my mother's baby daddy. I would refer to him as my father, but that wouldn't adequately reflect our relationship. He's the man whose genetic components mixed with my mother's to produce me. That was the end of his contribution to my existence.

This is the man I'd longed to know for years when I was a child. My mother, to her credit, never spoke ill of him. Instead, she'd always say, "You'd really like him if you got to know him." In my mind, he was the one who would rescue me from a stepfather who didn't love me and a mother too preoccupied with keeping the peace to notice. I used to love the song, Daddy's Home, because I thought he really cared about me, but just couldn't get to me to show it.

When I finally met him at the tender age of 22, I found him to be an arrogant, selfish person who had eyes like mine. He's into making good impressions, and he's very curious about everything. We share some amazing similarities, but I don't know him. Even though I'd wanted to have a healthy relationship with my mother's baby's daddy, I couldn't because he never acknowledged his wrong. I've had to relagate him to a corner in my world because his indifference to my feelings hurts me.

I've tried to look at it from an adult point of view, After all, if I'd become an unwilling parent at 22, I might have been scared and tried to run from the situation, too. However, I'd like to think that I'd be able to understand my estranged child's anger.

Actually, I didn't want to tell him about Granny's death. It just so happened that my father's other daughter -- a young lady who's 10 months younger than me -- lost her mother the Thursday before Granny died. Even though we don't have a relationship, either -- that's another story I'll fill you in on later -- I felt like it would be wrong for me not to acknowledge her loss. The day I'd decided to call our father to get her number was the day that Granny chose to go on to Glory. When I told him about it, he said he wanted to come. I told him that it was alright, that I was good. Besides, my mom has been sick lately, and I didn't want his presence to upset her at a time like this. Thankfully, he ended up sending a plant.

This evening's call was to check on me and find out how everything went. I thanked him for the plant and gave him the press-release version of the story. He then asked me how everything was going for me in California.

Before I go on, I need to give you some of the backstory. As I said before, he's never done anything for me. At Christmas, he wired me $50 so that I could, quote, "have a nice lunch," since I wasn't able to make it home to be with my family. While it was a kind gesture, it was almost insulting to me as I struggled to figure out how to make my ends meet. When we spoke a month later, I told him exactly how dire my straits were. The statement I made to him was, "I'm one step away from the [stripping] pole." His response? "I don't know what to tell you." Unbelievable, right?

Well, when he posed the "how's it going" question today, I told him that I don't get paid when I don't work, and I haven't worked for the last nine days. He said, "Well, keep me posted."

Will someone please explain to me why I need to keep him posted? He OBVIOUSLY doesn't care. It would've been better if he'd said, "Well, I can't help you now, but I would if I could." Even if it was a lie, it would've been better than the nothing-type response he gave.

More later...

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