For I am Him

One event/person that changed my life, huh? That is a hard question indeed, but luckily there are only two things that I can hold so dear in my heart. I guess I will choose the one that lived with me from the day I was born and will until the day I die. That would be my father, or lack there of for better meaning. Many people wouldn't think such a thing could really have such an impact on my life, but that is because they don't know what it is like. Many people don't realize that those things that we don't have in life make us who we are as much as the things that we do. And if there is one thing that I have never had in life that has changed me the most, it is my father.

I'm a seventeen year old male, and though now I don't need my father, when I was little I wished he was around all the time. Now that I can look back on my youth, I realized that I was deprived of something so vital for a male to have in their life. I never had anyone to play pass with or learn how to ride my bike. I never had anyone to teach me how to watch sports with or teach me how to shave. I never had anyone to show me what it was like to be a man. Sure I had my grandfather, and my uncles, but they weren't around much, if at all. I mean, they were there for me, but not in the way a boy would need a father figure.

I was mostly raised by my mother and aunts. Though I love them dearly, and though they have raised me to be a fine young man, there still is that feeling of loss that I wasn't raised complete. Spending my years in women's clothes stores and listening to women talk about lady things wasn't how I would liked to have spent my youth, but that's how I was raised. I was always picked on for not having a father, for not doing manly things and was often called a sissy or what not. It hurt. It hurt to be judged so, that one person's choice in life could ultimately make another person who they are, and my father's decision to abandon me made me who I am.

It goes beyond the simple aspect of not having a father figure, to a much more deeper acknowledgement that because of this I was created and molded by life. I was raised knowing abandonment. By this being so, I can not find a way to leave people when they are depressed or sad; I just can't make another person feel alone. I lived my youth alone. My mother was often too busy with work to watch me or to play with me so I found myself in day care, or with my grandparents and aunts lots of the time. It wasn't horrible, but it was just something that I didn't think I deserved, that some how I being punished for who I was.

My friends find it strange that I want kids in the future when most of them can't stand children. I want the family I never had. I want to be the father that I never had. I want to be the husband that every woman deserves. I want to right what was so unfairly done to my youth. I have a deep respect and honor for women, and would never dare raise my hand to one. I have a deep love and happiness in children, and I could never turn my back on one. This comes from my father being who he was. I don't want to be like my father and therefore I feel that I must prove to the world that I will not follow in his footsteps.

I realized young that life is not perfect. I realized that we can't have everything in life, but we should love what we do and honor what we don't. I got this from not having a father. I understood that life doesn't just exist with happiness in peace, that suffering and tears are as much part of it as joy and smiles. People will doubt this and even question how not knowing my father will create these thoughts, but it's all true. I understood that people are people no matter what they do.

My father wasn't or isn't a bad guy. I don't hate him for what he did, for not wanting me as a son. He had a life to live, and I my own. I don't know if he is dead or alive. I don't know where he is, or even who he is, but I know he's my father. I may never meet him, I may never be able to say that I knew my father, but I will always be able to say that he is my father. I will always live with knowing my father, his offerings to life within me, for I am him.