Loss
The kids were all working on a dinner of mashed potatoes and fried chicken. Everyone was laughing and joking (you can do amazing things with mashed potatoes!) I was eating next to Kane and somewhere in between carrots and cheesecake he began to talk.
"Do you have a dad?"
"What?" I asked.
"Do you have a dad?"
"Yeah, I do Kane." I nodded.
"I don't have a dad." His voice was determined and broken all at the same time. To me the whole world was standing still as this little boy talked.
"I don't have a dad." He repeated.
"Did you ever meet your dad, Kane?"
"No he left me when I was a baby. Just a few days old."
I nodded my head, at a loss for words.
"I ain't never going to leave my little girl or my little boy. Never."
Kane is in the 4th grade and he continually makes this point blank statement that he doesn't have a dad. It's almost as if he hopes the constant announcement will somehow loosen the hold it has on his heart. Each week he works this loss into the life we share with him at church. He carries his abandonment like a gun in his hand. Most people find him to be an angry, ungrateful and detached young man - but I don't see a bit of it. All that's there for me is a little boy who cannot for the life of him figure out why he wasn't worth enough for his dad to stay.
His old man may have choked at the pressure and took off, who knows. He's missing out on an amazing boy. What an insurmountable loss.
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Rev. Amy Beth "A.B." Augustin Barlow
The Third Story, Inc.
(All names and identifying details have been changed to protect anonymity. All pictures are randomly chosen from our ministry and do not reflect the actual individuals in the story.)
Comments
Amy - Thanks for your post. Instantaneously while reading this I choked up. My own issues of abandonment regarding my father plauged my entire childhood. Today, it is still a source of great pain. I see three specific stories of continual pain and opportunities for compassion here. The boy. The father. And the future children/grandchildren. There will be more of course, but those stand out for now.
Each of the lives of these three stories I mention will all be affected by each other in some form or another. The challenge for me (us all) is to learn how to validate (not make excuses for) each of the characters of this ongoing saga. For no matter how much of an "opinion" or "experience" I (we) have on this sort of issue, it is only in the attitude, compassion, and grace that I (we) choose to extend to these characters that can provide them with a lasting introduction to the Christ.
Thanks for your heart's commitment and beautiful insight while serving in such hard places. Great site from your link also.
Posted by: El Sam I Am | March 13, 2006 06:08 AM
At times in my life, "I didn't have a Dad." At other time, I had two Dads. This Dad thing is painful to say the least. My Dads are no longer. But, the loss is powerful even though I have children and grandchildren of my own. As a child, I had to stuff this pain down and try to act like the other kids. I felt so different and incomplete. My healing moments came as I knew God as my Father and through a loving Aunt. By healing, I do not mean the pain goes away. However, I now see it as a gift. I am to use this gift in understanding and ministering to children who are neglected and abused. I can identify with their suffering.
Posted by: mama rose | March 13, 2006 09:44 AM