I’m not sure what it was about me that evoked my father’s darkness. Maybe something about me mirrored parts of him that he loathed. Perhaps it was the timing of my birth, fourteen months on the heels of my brother Joel’s. It could have been the stress and strain of yet another mouth to feed and body to clothe, eleven if you include him and my mother. Or, as was recently suggested by my therapist Rosie, maybe my father’s con- tempt for me was linked to the color of my skin, which was darker than all of his girls up to that point. My caramel colored father, like most of America, was undoubtedly color struck and hence found it impossible to love that which he was trained to hate, even if it was his own flesh and blood. In any event, if don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements, is correct, how my father treated me had nothing to do with me. I’m not to take it personally. It was all about my father, about how he felt about himself and his life. My father was busy working out his own soul’s salvation. I, his unsuspecting little girl, merely had a small part in his movie.

A quiet, observant child, I felt as if I lived on the periphery of my family’s life, watched and yearned. My mother’s time did- n’t belong to us, at least not directly, but to her unapologetic cycle of chores—cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing–around the clock! Since she didn’t have the luxury of being a "kept" wife, mother cleaned the homes of white people so as to contribute to my father’s income from his blue-collar jobs and evangelism. A proud, stoic woman mother wasn’t one to lament her lot. She completely gave herself over to her roles. I never begrudged my mother for not engaging us emotionally, until much later after I’d sufficiently dissected my difficult childhood and her role in it. I’ve now come full cir- cle. Today I recognize my mother as the queen that she is. Besides, work, work, work and no play was just the way life was lived back then. Such quiet devotion to one’s family equaled love. And still, as the mother of a bright, loquacious ten-year-old I consider those childhood times missed opportunities for par- ent-child communion. But I never questioned my mother’s love for me. Her love for her children was—and remains—as solid and steady as the Rock of Gibraltar. I had my mother; it was a loving connection with my father that life cheated me out of.

YOU WILL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING

While my father pampered and praised, coddled and adored my five sisters, I was belittled, berated, ignored and beaten. Yet no beating cut as deep as the venomous battery of words he’d daily hurl at my self-esteem—You’re just lazy! You look just like a jezebel! You got too much pride! Who do you think you are! Thankfully, I have forgotten many of the insults. There was one verbal assault, however, that owned me. It seeped into my sub- conscious mind, then rippled wildly through my life producing bad and—surprisingly—some good fruit. "You’ll never amount to anything," he raged. His words tore at my sense of self, forcing me, unconsciously, to labor for years to prove him wrong. Man has yet to construct the belt that can lacerate human flesh like harsh words can hack away at a child’s self-esteem. My father’s whippings were enraged, out-of-control displays of hate, but few. Time healed my open flesh. My psychic wounds have required considerably more to mend. They’ve demanded time plus spiritual healing work—like fumbling in the dark, falling on my face, pulling myself up, finding my way, losing myself, griev- ing my losses, practicing forgiveness, crying over what could have been, and trying to love myself through it all.

When I was fourteen, my father ceased to give me money for transportation to school and lunch. "You’re too proud," he’d bark. "When you learn to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ I’ll give you money for school!" I flat out refused to grovel for what he gave my sisters generously. Besides, wasn’t being provided for my birthright? I let him be right. I would be too proud to beg. What my father meant for harm only operated to make me stronger, more determined to go to school, more committed to succeed- ing despite the obstacles. I would make it with or without him, my teenage mind decided. "And one day," I promised myself, "I won’t need you!"

I pined for my father’s love, well into womanhood. I could- n’t help it. I needed him. In the African American community, there has been quite a bit of misguided dialogue around the importance of an involved father to a boy’s healthy development. A boy’s chances of maturing into a self-assured, productive man, so the discourse goes, dramatically dwindle when he’s denied a relationship with his father. Absolutely. This is right on point. Then there’s a growing cadre of shortsighted sisters who insist that their child, boy or girl, "don’t need NO father!" These rejected fathers, I might note, are the same men these women felt compelled to bed. This myopia flies in the face of God and common sense. As I see it, if two parties must join together to create a life, then wouldn’t it follow that both people are essen- tial to the development of this life? Attempting to dispense with or marginalize one half of this equation—most often the father—dishonors our children, God and us. Personally, I know men (and women) who have grown into adulthood secretly hun- gering for their absent or abusive fathers. Those not on the road to emotional healing can be so burdened by shame, bitterness and fear that they are emotionally unfit for the delights and demands of intimate love. Convinced that they are intrinsically flawed, intimacy shines too bright a light on their real selves for them to fully participate in a loving partnership. So they hide, evade and run from love, even as they hopelessly yearn for it.