Wounds of a Dad: Still Got Work to Do

First posted on 21st October,2010 after a lecture titled Wounds of a Dad at Mavuno Church, Nairobi.

Hi Pastor S

That lecture was quite something. I thought I had dealt with my father wound issues during the Man Enough Series in 2009. He wouldn’t meet me last year and I chose to let him go. But I guess this was at another level. A deeper one.

I met my father for the first time when I was 17, for all of ten minutes. I coerced my mother through violence to arrange the meeting. I have since met him 4 or 5 times over the last 22 years. The acknowledgment I sought was lacking in all of those meetings. Even naming my first son after him did not make a difference.

On Sunday I wept. I wept because, I was angry, I was sad, I was bitter.

I now have a ten and a half year old son whom I don’t live with. I made a decision about 6 years ago to be part of his life and him in mine. Little did I realise how ill-equipped and inadequate I was for the task of raising a man. I guess this is where my sadness, anger and bitterness arose on Sunday.

I am also taking the Parenting Class(LEA) that I almost quit a few weeks ago until I got it that I don’t want my son, at 40, sitting in a similar class dealing with the same issues I am dealing with. It is hard. Yet, I honestly do not want my son to go through what I have gone through; a life dogged by alcoholism, relationships with unavailable women and mistrust of men leading to a life of zero accountability. And this has also greatly impacted my faith and trust in God.

I was angry at the immense responsibility and work that I have got cut out for me. I was bitter at this legacy he has bequeathed me and sad at the experience I am going through of feeling neutered after yet another failed relationship. It was hard letting go. It is hard forgiving my father.

Then on Tuesday evening, I got a call from my mother that my dad had died that morning. Honestly, my first feeling was that he had won again. This time for ever.

It has been suggested that I should be the bigger man and do what a son does; that I honour my father. I have shared that I have no clue how to do this. And I still don’t. I don’t even know whether to let my son know. I am however, considering attending the funeral.

Right now, I am wavering between numbness and the now familiar feelings and thoughts of anger, confusion, sadness and bitterness.

 

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