My dad and mom separated when I was 3 years old. I can still remember the day my mom left him standing in the driveway of The French Quarter, a Creole restaurant he and my mother built and ran in Alameda, California. He was wearing a light colored shirt and stood watching as I waved back at him through the car window. It was as if it was a normal goodbye.
But after that day, my mother and grandmother didn’t make it easy for my dad to see me. I remember asking myself all these questions: Where is he? Why doesn't he come pick me up? Doesn't he know where we are?
My grandmother made her opinions clear. She didn't like my father. "Your daddy ain't never done nothing for you," she would say whenever I mentioned his name. Well, he didn't give me anything for my birthday, I thought. Maybe she was right.
What I didn't know then, is that I would come to understand my father when I became a dad. My long time girlfriend and I had a baby when we were young. I was 21 years old. A few years later, we separated. I went from kissing my daughter goodnight and being woken by her jumping on me, to dropping her off at her mom's house and giving her goodnight kisses over the phone
My daughter's mother seems to resent me the same way my grandmother resented my father. When I started noticing my daughter developing a bad attitude towards me, I heard my grandmother's voice in my ear, "your daddy ain't never done nothing for you."
Standing in my father’s shoes, I was able to see things more clearly. My grandmother's opinion about my dad was just that – her opinion. And it was shaped by her own dysfunctional relationship with her father.
I'm determined to redefine fatherhood in my family. My daughter adores me, and her love isn’t based on what she thinks a father should be, it's based on what her father has been, there for her.
When we spend a weekend together, she often says "I love you" but it's the look she gives me that eternally confesses her feelings. I look at my father the same way, now that I know he was thinking about me all those years we were apart. I no longer see a man who did nothing for me my whole life, but a man who has always loved me.
After all, he’s my father, just as I am hers.
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Today at the park
Today at a park in the San Fernando Valley, my son started playing with this girl who was a little older than him. I was sitting there watching them and she called her dad to help her up to the monkey bars. He and I started chatting about how tall she was for her age, about her first week of kindergarden, about how much she had learned in preschool... We ended up talking for 45 minutes. We pushed the kids on the swings, and his daughter taught my son how to jump off the swing ("bring your arms in like this and jump!" she had said).
Well, it turns out this guy is Jordan Monroe.
Now, I recall hearing this piece "Standing in my father's shoe" one evening on the way home from work, and I recall feeling touched by the story, as I recall my parents separating on the Tarmac in some airport in France when I was 5 years old. I would not see my father again until 12 years later.
So we talked about the future of the newspaper/radio business, and I mentioned he should read "Tribes" by Seth Godin.
Then it got to be 7:50 pm and we finally got the kids into the cars and off to shower!
-- Chris Mahan (chris.mahan@gmail.com)
Re. My Father's Shoes
Re. My Father's Shoes
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