A person never realizes how much they were actually injured until that old sore, so to speak is touched even by the slightest of objects. I truly believe that I had forgiven my father, and yes I did but I only realized yesterday that I grew up not knowing how to be a father to children. I believe that these things are not part of the general information that one can get from around them, they are not "caught" as the saying goes but they are taught. As a kid I grew up hating my father and I had too many reasons to justify it, and the things I detested him for according to my judgement back then were deserving of a very slow and painful death, but since that was not possible I found that hating him would do just fine. I wanted to grow up and be someone he would admire but never identify with in any way, and this is still the case with many kids who were given a raw deal by their fathers.

But I wish to warn you in advance that It does not always work out the way we think it should.


My parents divorced when I was 11 and as I have indicated in my mothers day message (check the archives) my father was on the offensive side of their relationship. During the divorce process there was a time when my mother had to stay at her place of work because of the tension in the family and how it started to make her sick. We the kids stayed home with our father. We were just living under the same roof, no relationship whatsoever, and that does something to an eleven year old. In the course of time my dad brought home a woman with her three kids and we had extended family just like that. The house we lived in was designed for a small family. It had two bedrooms; a kitchen and a dining room. We used to have our own kids bedroom until then, and we had to give way for these other kids. We slept on the dining room floor with blankets only. My mom came home the following weekend and bought us a mattress so we could at least use it on the floor. We used it for another week or so and my father took it and gave it to our step siblings for no apparent reason. So they had our bedroom now they had our mattress too.


I attended the same school with one of these kids and we both did not have school uniforms. And back then for reasons I still don't know we were punished for not having uniforms. Well, when my mom came home another weekend I told her and she bought me a school jersey and socks. It was on Saturday when she did and I could not wait to go to school on Monday. On Sunday afternoon we accompanied my mother to the train station and when we came back my dad demanded the school uniform, I obliged and he gave it to my step sister. I began to hate these kids, their mother. and everything else about them. We began to live like total strangers in our home and my father was there making sure it happened.


After a few months or so my dad's new wife left with her kids and for a while life seemed to become better but this was going to be short lived. Another woman came to stay with us and even though she had kids they never stayed with us, they would come to visit her on Saturdays and left the same day. This arrangement suited us the kids well since it gave us back our territory. We seemed to live peacefully with our new mom until a few months later and things changed again.
The day was Friday afternoon and we were at home with my younger brother. My dad came from work and he was with his "wife" in the bedroom. A storm was brewing outside and the weather became real bad. Within a few minutes there was hail and rain mixed with strong wind. We were sitting with my younger brother in the kitchen besides the coal stove when my dad came from the bedroom.


He looked at us and asked us what we were doing here. This sounded very strange because this was our home and it was our father asking the question. We just stood there not knowing what response to give him. He grabbed us both with our collars, opened the door and literally threw us out into the rain storm. For a while I was a bit stunned but we soon came to our senses and realized that we were no longer needed here. I took my younger brother by the hand and told him that we had to go to our elder sister's place three kilometers away. By this time we were literally soaked, crying and afraid. Our mother was somewhere in town. It was around 4 in the afternoon when we got out of our home and walked through the bad weather trying to go to our sister's place.
To be continued.... MVK