The above tag is by our wonderful Donna over at "This and that, and Hockey!" fame.

 

I was sitting here wondering, maybe wishing ~ ok, definitely wishing.

I never knew my real father growing up, my mother divorced him when I was 6 months old... only one time was I made aware of a incident of where he tried to contact me; this was when I was pretty much living with my maternal grandparents most of the time.  I had just turned 16 or I was about to - apparently he called; my grandmother told him to never attempt to contact me again.  My grandmother told me about this, a long time later - don't know why she did what she did, don't even know why she felt she had to confess that this had happened.

At the time I didn't think much of it, yet as I grew older and even to this day I wonder why he called? I also wonder what it would have been like to actually have had a real father.  Even at 47 years old I wonder what it would have been like to have a father that loved me (who knows the man that was my birth father does love me, or at least thinks/thought of me) we could have done father/daughter things...read me stories, tucked me into bed vs. the assholes my mother did marry yanking me out of bed in the middle of the night and beating me.  A father who would have protected me against all the monsters in the world.  Maybe it's a unrealistic wish, maybe fathers aren't like that anymore, don't know ~ thing is about what I dream of is it's just a wish maybe even hope.

In the last few years I've done a little digging with Cindy's help to find him - I know his name....Robert Elliott Danner... he's either the same age as my mother or a couple years older maybe (my mother had me when she was 16 or just turned 17...they married very young, she never did graduate from high school...quit in 10th grade to have me and to be married, she did get her GED though on through the years, never much more education. 

Thing is?  I don't and haven't seen my mother in over 15 years - I keep in contact with her via email just because of emergency reasons.  I don't think things will ever be truly right between she and I for the reasons of she didn't protect me as a child and left me prey to her husbands (of which there were several) 4 by the time I was 6.  I disinherited, quit acknowledging her side of the family for a longer amount of time than even her... to me they are gone and as far as my heart is concerned "dead to me".  My mother?  I try to think and remember that she did the best she could do with what she had... she married young to escape from a extremely controlling father herself... I never saw or realized this about my grandfather until I was in my late 20's & I was extremely disillusioned, I guess because I had put him up on a pedestal for so very long...my grandmother too though I realize she was just a product of his almost rabid control of her actions and thoughts.  Me? I had always fought his control in a subconscious way and in many little ways without realizing that's what I had been doing.  He loved me I'm sure, but he loved me more when I followed his will unquestionably... something I did not do well at all.  By the time he passed away I had completely broken those bonds that I had, had with him as a child and young woman but oh I was so much wiser by then.  I was a disappointment to him because I didn't follow his direction or advice.  Why should I?  It wasn't for my welfare (those said directions or advice) but for his own sake and his own pride.  He had as much to do with the way my stepfather's throughout my life as the men themselves.  He knew what was going on and did nothing about it.  In my mind he was just as guilty as the men who did what they did to me.  Yet I still loved him and hoped one day he would accept me (in my subconsciousness).

I still would like to find my father one day - he may prove to be a huge disappointment, he may prove to be what I've always wanted him to be.  Who know's?  I may never....

Blessings*******************