Dad

I've been lost for words on the blogging front recently, the space in my head filled with the return of my husband and the father of my children.  Their beloved Daddy.

I never knew my Dad.  I have no memory of him, none at all.  The closest thing I have is the memory of my mother talking about him, occasionally.  The above photo is one of three or four I own, taken during a one-off meeting in the summer of 1988.  I think I took them from an album of my mum's when I was 11 or 12.  At the time when I first ever really thought about his existence.  Unfortunately, by that point, the chances of us ever meeting again were zero.  He apparently died in 1996, when I was nine.  I have a vague recollection of my mother being told the news two years later, by my stepfather.  She cried for a while.

Anyway, a proper meeting was never to be and his parents were apparently uninterested in seeing me.  I visited his grave when I was 18, left a flower.  I didn't really know how to feel.  How can you miss someone you didn't know?  Even when you know you're a part of them, it is hard to feel much for them.  What did upset me was not the thought that I hadn't known him but the thought that I never would.  There was no future relationship to look forward to, there was just nothing.  I will never know if he thought of me during my life and if he did, what had kept him from getting in touch.  That is what is difficult now.  The not knowing.

The lack of knowledge about my own father has done one good thing, though.  It has helped me to find an excellent father for my children; the very best.  It is such an important relationship to me, I encourage it at all times.  During his recent absence, I have spoken to my children daily about their father and helped them to do the same.  They send him videos and photos, they draw for him and, above all, they miss him.  I look at them and know that they are adored by their Daddy, and it helps.  It helps to know that something that caused me pain will not be an issue for my children.  They will have the memories, millions of them, as well as the photos.  They will know that their Daddy thought of them every day of their lives and that they always have been and always will be the most important people in his life.

My children have an amazing father, and I cannot wait to have him home.