I grew up without my dad in my life. From what I've been told, my grandmother was not a very nice lady and a little touched in the head. Here's hoping that I'm not the same, but alas, I fear I am. Anyhow, my mother was only 16 when she had me so it is hard to be angry with her for the shortcomings of my childhood, too and my dad, well, from what I know, he was a bit of a wild child.
As the story goes as clearly told by my dad, my mother told him that I wasn't his. Now, anyone that has seen my half sisters and I together can confidently say that I am my father's child. I think there is no doubt there. So, armed with the belief that there is no little Robison running around, he continues on with his life.
Back in '89, it crossed my mind to give him a ring while trying to figure out my life, find out who I was and find some way to comfort myself from the pain of life. Well, I did get in touch with him and remarkably, we only lived about three blocks from each other. Can you believe it? However, I was really between a rock and a hard place.
I was honest to a fault sometime and figured, for whatever reason, that my mom and my step dad needed to know about this and told them. To make the situation worse, they got their feelings hurt. Life has not been the same since. My real mother has not seen my kids in four or five years. Imagine being a grandmother and not seeing your grandkids for that long. There is no order of protection or no ailment that prevents them from the travels this way. I got scared and never met with him. And sought my way out of a most uncomfortable position that I had found myself in by joining the military...
Several years later and three kids later I mustered the nerve to seek him out again. This time, there was no one else paying my bills. No one that I had to appease but me and if they got mad at me, so be it, that's the way things go. With some diligence and patience, I finally tracked him down. I told no one as I began my quest. My husband was my boyfriend at the time. He knew nothing of what I was doing. The kids knew nothing. My friends knew nothing. I wanted no one but me to be dissapointed if that is what it came down to.
But that is not what it came down to.
Instead, I found peace, solace and hope in a man that had been absent from my life for over thirty years. I found comfort in a family that I am remarkably similar to in personality and physical attributes. And I found a role model for maternal behavior in a woman that was not even my flesh and blood.
When I think of my dad and my step mother, I find it hard to hold back the tears. I know that my life and the lives of my children have been so greatly enriched because of them and because of the interaction with the family that I did not know. I had to find it in my heart to let the past be in the past. You cannot change it but you can make every day going forward a day to be cherished.
