I have two conflicting images of my father which I carry around inside and which are only now beginning to merge and meld into the patterns of muscle and indignation that I recognize as him. On the one hand, I see him climbing everything from the sides of buildings to trees and from mountains to railroad cars. In this image, he is always smiling and laughing and teaching. He likes to teach even though he doesn’t know it. On the other hand, I see and feel this emotional vaccuousity that stands like a shadow that we are always running from. In this image, he is withdrawn and unstable.

The shadow chases him but it also lives inside of him. He has done so many hurtful things trying to get free from this shadow. It is only now that I am in my twenties that I am beginning to really understand that these two men are one and the same. When I was younger, I knew them both to be the man that is indeed my father…but I really only called one my dad and I tried my best to forget and elude the other. That and I tried often to console and heal and force the one to become the other.

Much of my young life was spent trying to stay one step ahead of the shadow and its effects on my family. It was then that I learned that I am no healer. Much to my surprise, I am learning to love that shadow because it is as much my father as the Spiderman-come-to-life chimpanzee of a man who was so much fun. And I am learning to love them equally because I can see that my father’s own struggle against the shadow, the pain, the seeming manic emptiness, and the guilt and shame will end in total defeat and the loss of the spiderman I have always loved if he does not learn how to love and accept the darkness that lives in him. Some of us learn to love the darkness quite early on, others much later, and some never at all. I am where I am because of wonderful people who have loved my darkness and my light all mixed together without trying to separate them or even make them make sense. And so, as I grow up, I try to love the darker parts of a man that has so much power to hurt me…and doesn’t know it.

It is a strange thing to know that the father that you love, the dad that you idolized as a 6 year old, never wanted you. It is especially strange to hold that truth beside the years of growing up that you enjoyed. He was so good at pretending for so long. But now, you realize, this was more because he was trying not to be his father. He never tried to be your father though. He was and always will be just a man running from the shadow of his father and all of the trauma that lived in that shadow.

Not wanted is different from not being loved though. That may seem illogical, impossible, or conflicting. Such has been much of my life. I think that is what makes this so hard for my mind to wrap around. I am 23 years old and for 23 years my father has not wanted me. He did not want to be a father like his father. He did not want to be a father. And I am the oldest of three daughters that force him to be a father. I was the first. I was the one who changed him into a father. He has loved me both fiercely and feebly in seasons since; but never wanted me. Never wanted to be the man I force him to be.

He thought he would just stick it out until I was 18. As it turns out, I will be his daughter for the rest of my life…and he my father. I think he resents me for this. He imagines that I will not release him or let him go as if fatherhood is a prison sentence that I execute with injustice in my eyes. As if I have a choice at all who my father is. As if I chose to exist. He has tried to make me angry. He has hurt me on purpose trying to make me run. He has chased me with hard truths with the hope that I will not want him. All of this, he has admitted to.  Often, I do not know why I hold on. I do not hope for change. I do not believe he will ever want me. I think I hope for understanding to come and maybe a little bit of healing with it. I think I am waiting for him to believe that he is both wanted and loved.