The door slammed behind her, and she was gone. It would be a year before I would see her again. I was four years old when it happened. A day I will never forget – it was the day my mother walked out on us. That was it. We were on our own – just my father and me.
My father always said he regretted marrying too young, but that would never regret my being born. A few short months later, my dad was in court waiting for my mother to show up to fight for custody of me. She never came. She didn’t even try to fight for me. The judge granted my dad full custody and told him he didn’t even have to give her any visitation rights. Being the good man that he was, My father thought a daughter should have her mother. Shortly thereafter, the divorce was final and my father was officially “single”. I rarely saw my mother for those first few years.
Life was tough, but I never knew it. I remember having breakfast, lunch and dinner without fail. And although my dad tells me now how poor we really were, I remember never going without. He did his best to hide his worries and difficulties to make rent every month. He had to pay daycare for me and never once asked my mother for child support. Now that I’m older I’ve come to realize that my father went without food himself in order to make sure I ate. He put food in my mouth and clothes on my back. I always had a warm bed to sleep in. My fondest memories of my life were when I was five years old and he taught me how to ride my bike and how to swim.
We laugh every so often about the story of our ‘Charlie Brown” Christmas tree. Dad didn’t have any money one year to get a tree, but because I begged him so badly to get one, we went out at the last minute. The only tree left was a small, barely living, Christmas tree. It was so bad we had to have it flocked just to make it look presentable. Honestly? I remember the tree, but I don’t remember the fact that it was so terrible. What I remember is my father whom I loved so much got me a Christmas tree that I asked for regardless of how bad it looked. I remember each year having gifts that to me were huge – a big, pink, Barbie bus, a keyboard and more. He told me when I was older that he saved all year for those gifts.
I know on some level my dad thinks all these things were small and that he failed me in some way. But for me, those few years of being “single” with dad taught me there is a whole lot more to life than having money, and great memories are what you make of them.
My life has not been perfect and definitely has not been easy. However, because of that one moment in my life – the day my mother walked out and made my father a single man – my life was forever changed. That event shaped me into the strong, independent woman I am today. Some ask how this little girl has had such a great life without being raised by a mother’s influence – a mother’s love? It was because of her father’s influence and her father’s love.