Fatherless.

Some memories in life, you know you will have forever, whether you like it or not. A day that regularly haunts me is my 37th birthday. This was the first time in my life that I ever talked to my father. This was supposed to be the day we talk for the first time, cry together, and then live happily ever after. I This was my chance to finally have a father and for the first time not be a Bastard. I have imagined this moment so many times in my life it’s not even funny.

Usually it goes like one of my favorite old Johnny Cash songs called “A Boy Named Sue.” If you don’t know the song, it’s about this guy whose dad split when he was a baby. Since he would not be there to protect and provide for his son, he figured he would just give him this terrible name so he would at least grow up tough. Well it worked because that boy named Sue, had grown to be a man, and he was as tough as they come. Then one day he spotted his derelict father in a bar. Sue stormed in, and called out the old man! After that, they broke into a big brawl, kicking and scratching each other. Then all of a sudden they had this moment…their hardened hearts were broken and they realized they loved each other and they made up with hugs and affection.

So that’s just about how it went, just like the Johnny Cash song. It was perfect, I finally had a dad! Wait. No hold up. It didn’t happen that way at all. This story really has no happy ending, it was just absolutely terrible that’s all there is to it. Life is not like the movies or the radio, usually life is a whole lot harder than we ever dreamed it could be, Here’s what really happened that day…

Like I mentioned it was my 37th birthday, and I was going over to my mom’s for a small birthday celebration. Only one problem was there was a surprise waiting for me when I got there. I was supposed to talk on the phone with my father for the first time in my life that night. My wife had thought to help me along making the connection since my mom dug him up online only nine months prior, and it was not working out. She figured if she could just get us on the phone, the rest would just work itself out. I truly love this sweet naïvety about my wife, she always assumes the best of people. Unfortunately, it didn’t go as planned.

Before you are thoroughly confused, let me give you a little more context. You probably gathered by now that I grew up without a father, and that is true, but here’s some of the finer details. Unlike most of my fellow bastards, who had no idea who their father was, I knew exactly who he was. I didn’t have the luxury of dreaming about someday finding out you had a famous dad who would finally realize you were his son….blah blah blah…nope. I knew his damn name. My mom would tell how he was “The coolest guy in high school.” and “star player on the football team!” She told me how they fell in love in high school, she got pregnant, and they ran away together to California.

But while they were in California, and she was working at a Wendy’s super pregnant with me, he was out hooking up with her best friend! She said she kicked him out, and never saw him again. Except for one time, when I was two or three, he came to the front door with a jacket for me, but my papa ran him off before my mom got to speak to him. That’s it.

That’s the entire story I got for more than 36 years of my life. Not for lack of asking, mind you, I asked about my dad constantly! I just got the same basic story, and never thought to ask the right questions because I was a kid! Like maybe this.. “Hey mom, why don’t we just have the state of Nevada look up my dad for us, don’t they want child support from him too?” I didn’t realize how many holes were in the story I got as a kid until…well until I heard another version of the story.

The second version of the story didn’t rise to the surface until my father came into the picture to tell his side, and it was nothing like what my mother told me. According to my father, he just learned of my existence the previous year when my mom dug him up on Facebook. What? I was completely wrecked. This was absolutely impossible! I did not know what to think? How could this be? Could my mom have been lying all these years?

Well that is the story his current wife from Florida told my wife as they planned our reunion. According to his story, he barely knew my mom in high school. He said she was a slut, and slept around with tons of guys, and he had no idea I was his. I wasn’t buying it. There was just no way he didn’t know I existed all these years. He was nothing but a liar!

After a little research, we discovered he had three other children! I had a half brother in Reno, a half sister in Vegas, and another half sister in New York. After speaking with each of them, it was clear, he had a track record of having kids and then bailing on them. None of his kids were in contact with him and all insisted they never wanted to see him again.

Here’s a tip: You want to know the truth about a man, ask his kids…so apparently my father got my mom pregnant and moved with her to California, but left her before I was born as a teenage girl to raise me on her own. Then he went to Reno and within a few years he had two more kids. Sometime when they were both still in grade school, he left them too. Somehow he ended up in New York with another little baby, that he soon lost contact with as well.

In my book, there is not much worse in society than a father or a mother who bails on their kids! I don’t know the details of each situation, but I know he left. He had kids counting on him and he just left. I have zero tolerance or respect for anyone who neglects their children. No doubt, it’s personal for me, but I honestly believe we can trace back the majority of what is wrecking our society to one key problem: fatherlessness.

This is our big problem in America, and likely in the world, our kids need dads and moms who love them unconditionally. Without this love, living in broken homes and broken families, kids will turn to evil as their only defense. I know a big reason God has called me to tell my story with all the grimy details is so the rest of you can maybe understand what life was like for kids like me. My life can be a case study for the following: “What turns kids into criminals?” Definitely a topic I need to keep up front as my story unfolds to be sure.

So we get to my mom’s place and she’s already in birthday mode. Happy and crazy like she gets, having no idea how things have nose dived with my father. She wasn’t really in the loop because I was afraid it would hurt her if she knew what he was saying and doing. Of course I was right because she was wrecked pretty bad when she found out he was calling her a liar. The plan was he was supposed to call me that evening for our first phone call ever. Instead, we got a message saying flatly that he was not going to be calling after all, with no real explanation. It was clear to me he was afraid to face the son he abandoned.

So I called it like I saw it and sent this text: “You are nothing but a Fucking Coward!” Immediately thereafter, the phone rang, and yep it was my father. The first thing I heard him say was “If I ever see you or your mother I will fucking bury you! Do you understand me?” At this point, I was wishing for “The Boy Named Sue '' story to be my story. This was worse than I ever imagined. When my dad spoke, I somehow knew his voice. The little boy inside of me knew his voice, and to hear him threaten to kill me and my mom on my birthday like that… was too much. Honestly, it’s still too much and that’s why I got to write this today.

I can't hold it in anymore, it just hurts too bad. An experience like this plays in your head every day and torments you, unless you get it out. Like a favorite musician of mine says, “The only way to free your pain is to feel your pain.” Dustin Thomas.

After I was able to break my shock, I returned fire with as much force as I could. We spent the next few minutes screaming threats at the top of our lungs. I remember I was outside my mom’s house, sitting in my truck and I was shouting so loudly the neighbors were coming out. I lost control pretty badly at that point, and soon my shouting turned to weeping, and I fell into an uncontrollable sob. In an instant, any dreams I held onto to someday meet my father and know what it was like to just be told “I love you son” were gone. There would be no father-son reunion for me, unless I wanted to be strangled to death. I was pissed at myself for allowing him to make me think, even just for a second, that it could be different.

I basically went numb at that point, and was no longer able to keep shouting at him. He must have noticed that I gave up the fight because he quickly changed his tone. He began telling me about his life, and how it was basically a collection of mistakes. He said he didn’t want it to turn out like that. He just had a hard time adjusting to life, and had to leave to start over. Apparently, like over and over and over again. He told me when he finally failed his second marriage in New York, it was just too much for him and he broke down. He said he was a bum living on the streets, about to die when his new wife found him and saved him. He told me all of this right after he threatened to kill me! I didn’t even speak, I just listened to the most pathetic life story I had ever heard.

I wish I could say I didn’t care. I want to tell you how I don’t have a drop of love for that coward to this day. But that’s not true. It broke my heart to hear his story. That doesn’t change the fact that he still left me and three of my half siblings to grow up without a father. I just cannot respect a man who bails on their family, and he did it three times! There should be a 3 strike law against fathers who leave their kids. Just like 3 felonies gets you 25 to life, we should make any man or woman who leaves their kids without love and support go to prison for life as well. To be honest, I think that’s exactly what he got, not an actual prison, but after hearing his quick story, it was clear my father was serving a life sentence in a mental prison of suffering.

This turn in the phone call really caught me off guard. I wanted to hate this guy for what he had done, but I felt sorry for him. Under all the violent threats on my life was left a broken and pathetic shell of a man. He was surprisingly humble for a moment as he revealed these intimate facts about his past, and I am grateful for that, but I remained guarded. He did most of the talking for I guess about five minutes, but it seemed like an hour because time was standing still. He finally paused and I could tell he was close to being done. I remained silent on my end, implying that I was not going to return the conversation, and was ready to just be done.

Then he said, “I love you son and I’m proud of the man you’ve become.” It was kind of like he knew the line from the movie as well as I did! Every stupid father-son reunion movie has the cherished scene where the dad finally tells his son how proud he is and how much he loves him and now the son can finally become a man like his father! I hate those movies…I tried to hide the tears in my voice and just responded coldly, “Thank you” and hung up the phone. I dried my eyes the best I could, and went back into the birthday party. It was almost time for cake.

I made it through the party, faked a few smiles, and was able to quickly call it a night. Everyone asked how the phone call went, but I just tried to blow it off and said it was fine. It wasn’t exactly “birthday party appropriate,” so I didn’t talk about it in any detail until later with my wife.

My mind was spinning out of control, and I was just trying to make sense of what the Hell was going on. I didn’t know if my mom had been lying to me all these years or if this asshole who says he is my father was lying? The conversation kept playing back in my head about how he never knew I existed, and how my mom was just a crazy party girl who slept around. Could his story actually be true?

At this point, I felt completely lost and more like an orphan than I ever had in all my life. My origin story had just been ripped out from under me. I have been able to survive on the old story my mom gave me, but this changed everything. Nothing either my mother or my father said lined up at all. I left the party with no idea what was the truth and what was a lie. All I knew for sure was that both of them were lying to me.

So as it turns out, “The Boy Named Sue” would not be my story after all. I was still just a Bastard Son and it seemed I always would be. I am sorry I don’t have a happy ending to finish with. It is extremely difficult to build a relationship on either end when I still have never been provided the honest truth from anyone, so I have just pulled back for now and decided to let things heal in God’s timing.

Even though this area of my life may still be broken, I am able to slowly find freedom and rest from my pain through my writing and ultimately because I have a beautiful family today that supports me and loves me unconditionally.

© 2018-2023. Christopher Joy. All Rights Reserved.