Dad

Wednesday night is community meal and men's Bible study at the Joshua House. The Joshua House is our Transitional housing unit here at Source. I currently live right next door. We discussed edification, encouraging one another. At one point Gary, our Transitional House Director asked how many of us had fathers who taught us how to be good husbands and dads. Not a single young man currently in our program could raise their hand and only a few the program leaders were able to answer yes. It is so tough for a young man to grow up making right decisions without the positive involvement of his father.

I believe that having never known my own Dad helps me relate to these guys. I feel their pain and frustration. I know first hand all the emotional damage that comes from being abandoned by your father. I have spent most of my life working through that pain and now am able to help those experiencing the same issues.

I wrote a poem to my Dad and recited it at our Open Mic nite tonight at the Fallout, later a guy I never met came up to me and told me how much it touched him. I am so glad when I am able to use my talents to reach out to people.
This is the poem,

Dad

Dad, I just want to thank you for everything you've given me,

This absolute absence of any identity

And all the endless opportunities

That are found in growing up not knowing what a father is.

This overwhelming rage that's grown out of loneliness,

Dad, how can I ever thank you

For teaching me to question my own value

As I wonder what was ever so wrong with me,

To make you wanna leave my mom and me?

Do you know when you chose to go you left a Dad sized hole

inside of me?

In place of a father's love you left the disaster of abandonment

and the memory of what was said to me the day I learned what the word bastard meant.

Dad, thanks for all the wonderful gifts you've given me to play with,

Like bitterness, insecurity and hatred.

Are you OK with it?

I mean does it even bother you that you're the father I never knew.

Its true at times I wonder how different things might be

If I had a dad who was there for me,

Willing to share with me a sense of clarity,

Willing to take the time to actually prepare me for life...

And what it means to be a man.

I needed you beside me to guide me but you turned your back and ran.

Damn.

But you know Dad, it's OK 'cause today I can say it was worth it.

Cause Dad in your absence you left me a chance to learn how to forgive someone

Who really doesn't deserve it.

And that forgiveness helped heal the emptiness that came from never knowing where you were.

Forgiveness turned my bitterness into strength and character.

Having never known a dad of my own

Makes me want to try that much harder to be a good father.

And for that Dad,

I thank you.