Abandonment Issues
Abandonment Issues
Iman Sakrani
I often ponder which of my peers will go on to bring children into the world, just to abandon them. My mother always tells me that in his own corrupt way, he loves me. But how can you love someone you don’t even know? My father probably didn’t grow up with the plan of deserting the children he helped create, but I still question when and how he came to the decision that my siblings and I just weren’t worth it. All of these notions circle my mind, never being able to solidify into a concrete answer.
In contrast to these despairing thoughts, to be honest, I also reflect on whether or not I ever have truly been unhappy or emotionally scarred or damaged in some manner because of his absence or does society just expect me to be? Will my future relationships with males be abnormal? My mother tells me I was traumatized when he left, but being only four at the time of departure, I lack recollection of said emotional trauma. Within the boundaries of my accessible memories, I have lived quite a joyful life for the most part, aside of course, from the run of the mill puberty and societal-related American teen issues.
Yet, his abandonment doesn’t ever quite disappear, even as the years pass by. I’m reminded of this void every time my orchestra holds a concert, and all of the families gather afterward to praise our musical efforts. There are many dads there. Never mine. Or courtside on the tennis team, as I compete within the fences, working to stay focused, I can see a smattering of lawn chairs holding parents through the screens, many of whom are fathers. Never mine. And I am sure these situations will continue on throughout my life with his absence being remembered, however fleetingly.
Some days it stings more, and other days, not at all. Fusing this ongoing reality with all of the other experiences surrounding me, I’m left to exist on my own choices of how to continually digest and live my fullest life without a father (or at least until my mother ever decides to re-marry, which she should work on). I am left to choose whether or not the infection of his decision be allowed to grow or remain largely benign. It is at this interface that I find the entire scenario to have most sculpted my character. I was forced to emotionally grow up more quickly than some, but that is not without its benefits in life. For one, I’m able to navigate daily stresses quite adeptly, and tend to have a more mature perspective. In particular, I’ve come to understand that the definition of a complete family comes in a multitude of forms, and being without a father doesn’t make mine incomplete. Whether there is one parent, two or four, same genders or different, same skin colors or different, blood bonds or not, a complete family is your family, in whatever shape it should take. And as long as there is love and support there, then I’m complete too.