There is this song from a French singer called Calogero that is about his father and which makes me cry when I hear it. It says (I will try to translate) : "He would just have to call me... I would tell him about my childhood, about his absence, everyday... As much as I talk to him in spirit, I learn on my own to become stronger, as much as I can't stop thinking about it, if only he could miss me... Is he going to give me a sign, the lack of a father is not a crime, I just have one prayer for him, if only he could miss me..."
I cry when I hear this song because I am thinking of my daughter, whose father has been absent for so long. I would give all I have to make him be a father, so that she can have this essential and natural gift that everybody deserves: the love and care of both parents.
I saw my father today. We hadn't seen eachother since July. We were to meet at one of my sister's place to celebrate a late Christmas. Me and my daugther were walking in the street when I noticed he was walking right in front of us. We walked to him and said hi with a big smile. He was on the phone, he turned to us and waved a quick hello and then continued walking and talking on the phone. We walked like that for about 5 minutes, me and my daugther, and him talking on the phone.
Maybe it is because of the mothers that fathers drive themselves away. Maybe because the mothers don't let them be themselves enough. But in my case I will never know, because when my daugther's father left for another country and stopped calling, I was the one waking up at night for her when she was sick and every morning to cook her breakfast and take her to school and I was the one celebrating her birthday and cooking cakes for her and looking in all the shops to find the gifts that would make her happy, I was the one to take her to places like parks and playgrounds and I was the one who knew the names of her friends and who could tell if she had a good day or not after school. I didn't go out at night, I stayed at home, silent and lonely, broke and uncertain about my future but sure about the love I had for her and concerned that she would get all this love from me, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I gave her my love and I tried to fill the empty gap left by his absence...
I couldn't say if my father was really happy to see us. He is living in Bordeaux, which is in the South of France, and I know he comes to Paris quite often for his work but never does he call me or my sisters to visit us and our children, never does he come for us. He may suffer from this distance that separates us, but isn't it the distance he created himself? Is he so busy with his books and friends that he can't find the time to share moments with his daugthers and grand-children? Or is it because he cannot stand that, through us, he can see that time is passing, and the more grand-children he has, the older he gets?
I wish my father could remember how much he missed his own father all his life, and I wish my daugther would have a grand-father who wouldn't make her feel, like with her father, that she is not so important. It hurts to get this feeling from your own father. Tonight I felt very close to her, because I felt that I was not so important for my father, or at least that I was something complicated in his life.
The saddest thing I remember is when my daugther was smaller, like around 4, when I went to get her at pre-school to take her home and people would say: "Oh, you are going home to see daddy!" and I couldn't say anything, she couldn't say anything, we just had to walk away pretending nothing was said and heard, we both knew there was no daddy to come home to, and we just had to live with it...
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