So we've all heard the cliche before: HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF.For a long time, I felt pain over the not so positive relationship between my biological father and myself.
As it turns out, he too was harboring a similar pain, a pain that came more to light when my younger sister tracked down our Cuban grandfather. I am actually looking at his naturalization document as I type, gazing at his signature. This person is a part of me.
To make this History Repeating itself more clear, my sister found out that he had indeed returned to the states in 1955, when my father was still a young boy, and became a US citizen. He died here in the states in 2005. My father, as told to me by my sister, did not take the news very well. He was hurt and stated "the ***hole didn't come back like he said he would."
Turns out, my father, obviously many many years my senior was dealing with the same abandonment issue he had so graciously bestowed upon me by him being absent from my childhood.
He found out, much as I had when I tracked him down, that his father had also gotten married and fathered other children.
My father had thought that his father died a long time ago in Cuba.
It is interesting that history repeated itself almost exactly without my father really knowing it, and yet when my sister pointed out "now you know how your daughter feels" he simply fell silent.
It is what it is.
Despite what would be called common sense by some, I still love my father, and while his absence and even his lack of regard for my life or my feelings as of late, I forgive him and I let go. I accept that my father will not ever be the father that I deserved and that's just a part of life. There is a beauty in letting go, and by all accounts my father's story is significantly sadder than my own, and perhaps because I pity him that he was dealt a rather crappy hand in the parent department -- I was blessed that regardless of how ridiculous my mom can be at times, never have I doubted that I was loved -- my father has lived a life of dealing with the feeling of not being loved by the people that made him. For that, I am truly sorry. I actually find myself not weeping for my own loss or pain, but...for his.
So, I do believe that knowing where you came from is a good thing, so you know where you are going.
It is said that we all are in class, and that class is life itself. There are many tests that we are doomed to repeat until we learn the lesson. So I am glad that in my lifetime, even though I may be divorced, that in my lifetime, my son is so surrounded by people that love him in such great measure. My son knows that both the people that made him love him, and love him fiercely. So I find comfort in that.
That is all I have for today.
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