Father and Son Reunited

Father and Son Reunited

My Dad

© Leah Hendrie

If I could write a story
It would be the greatest ever told
Of a kind and loving father
Who had a heart of gold

I could write a million pages
But still be unable to say, just how
Much I love and miss him
Every single day

I will remember all he taught me
I'm hurt but won't be sad
‘coz he'll send me down the answers
And he'll always be MY DAD

A happy home is strictly in the eye of the beholder.  Are you the product of a happy home, as opposed to being from a broken home (divorced or separated parents)?  By that definition I am the product of a broken home; however, by reality and outcome, I come from a very happy home.  As the saying goes, if life gives you lemons make lemonade.  My mother decided to make lemonade so that we could have a refreshing drink instead of carrying the burden of the parents’ decisions through life.

I am not going to second guess my parents as to the why of the divorce.  I do have some information. But as everyone knows even when the facts point in a given direction there’s always two sides to every story.  It is what it is, and nothing is to be gained by rehashing what went wrong. From the age of 9, I went 7 years before I met with my father in the summer that I turned 16 years of age.  Because my mother always maintain communications with my fraternal grandmother, and I found out about it; I wrote to my grandmother secretly and asked her for a picture of my father and his address.  Once again under the veil of secrecy I contacted my father just to say hello.  My mother was purposely keeping us apart.

My father invited me to go visit him in Los Angeles, and I told him I would ask permission.  Just to let my mother know that I had contacted my father was an act of betrayal in her eyes.  She confessed that she was afraid that if I made contact with my father, I would leave and never come back.  After a couple of weeks of working on her, I convinced her that I just wanted to have a friendship with my father and that I would return in plenty of time to go back to school. 

My father was excited of the prospect of seeing me again after 7 years of separation.  We made plans and he sent me a one way ticket by Greyhound Bus.  My emotions were off the charts, I was concerned by my mother’s sadness that I was leaving her side for the first time ever.  I was also very excited and fearful about traveling across 3 States all by myself.  When I arrived in San Francisco, I was supposed to transfer buses, and I barely got on the transfer bus in time to continue the trip.  By the time I found the correct bus, it was already backing out of its parking bay.  The driver was unhappy that he had to stop the bus and let me in.  My luggage was already on the bus so I would have been in real trouble if I had missed getting on board. 

I couldn’t believe the scenery as we traveled though the Bay area.  I was looking at the Pacific Ocean for the first time ever in my 16 years of life.  I was also seeing more cars in traffic than I had ever seen in my whole life.  In very short order my education was multiplying by leaps and bounds.  All of a sudden I was becoming a well-traveled individual.  Look for the next posting to complete the post; Father and Son Reunited.  The best is yet to come……