My son is 22 now and a man by all standards, yet there is something missing in my son, his complete identity. You see I am not sure who his father is. I was a stupid young woman looking for some elusive feeling... love. I thought I saw it in one mans eyes; sure it was in another and wished like everything that it were in a third. None of them cared about me and none of them cared about the beautiful curly haired son that we produced. And so I choose one to be the father. I had to receive welfare back then and I reasoned with myself that the child was probably his anyway. After all I was with him the most. So for eight years of his life my son thought that this man was his father, the man wasn't being a father but at least my son knew him and could see where he came from. Why we even managed to believe that he looked like this man! The welfare eventually caught up with the alleged father and he demanded a DNA blood test. The results were conclusive… He was not the father.
So my son grew up holding on to the idea that the DNA results were somehow wrong. How could they be right? Don’t I look like him? Don't I walk, talk, and laugh like him? My heart broke for him. Finally I told him what he already knew:
"Mommy wasn't sure then and is still not sure and I am very sorry for giving you a false legacy.” “But understand, I wanted you with every fiber of my being and you are a blessing to me. You were meant to be. With all the backward wrong I had done how could I have destroyed you?”
Oh how my youth burns me!
I would do anything to take the hurt from his eyes. I know he wonders about who his real father is. I am still holding secrets because now that the other man has been excluded I am more certain who is his father simply by watching my son move and react to his world. I saw it many times in the man I had really loved. I cannot give my son the gift of his father because although I had loved him, he was "damaged goods". Even now at my sons age I am afraid his father (or lack of) could adversely affect him. So it cannot end.
Young girls take pride in you. Love yourselves. Nourish yourselves. Give any children you may have a legacy that they deserve... love from two parents who want them, who would cherish them. Not the betrayal I gave my son, the betrayal of living your life so wrong, so unhealthy. Although we may want to think that our love can cover everything, a child always wants to know about that parent who isn't there and why that parent doesn’t love them.
