Father

by Anonymous

Father. A word with great meaning for many people. It can bring up the idea of "Father Knows Best" or the father of Jenny in the movie, "Forrest Gump." To me my memories of my father are few, or at least hard to bring up. I did, of course, last see my father when I was four.

I was born in the great city of Atlanta in the Bible belt of the south, Georgia. The year was 1956. It was the typical sweltering summer day of August that I came into this world. Now, some come into the world greeted with open arms and seen as a precious gift that God has asked someone to give great care and patience with. Others, the parents were obviously just plain deaf to the words of greater powers.

My parents fall into the later category and while I could talk at great length about my parents as a couple, it is my limited time and surfacing memories that I wish to write about and hopefully open the doors to healing about.

My father's name was Rutherford (Rudy). I have few clear memories of him but it is safe to say that none of them are in the Father Knows Best category. My memories and feelings (which are of course a kind of memory for a child so young) all pretty much have no light in them. They are dark in possibly the worst sense.

I have a memory of him putting me in the trunk of a black Ford sedan. I can see myself being forcefully carried out to the driveway, him opening the trunk which had a ton of junk in it, placing me in there and closing the trunk lid. My memory fades at that point. I have a memory of him putting a rope on my arm and tieing me to a tree in the woods behind the house so that he didn't have to watch me. A bee attacked me. I also have a memory having to do with seeing black, military like boots and a gun in the closet. Did I mention he was a card carrying member of the KKK? I had even overheard him talking of going out and killing black people--but that's not what he called them.

The one episode that happened that for some reason I was blamed for was when my father and his brother dragged my half-sister, Jean, who was seven years older than me, back to the bedroom and raped her. She was only eleven. They were saying something about, since my mother wasn't going to give it up, her daughter was going to. When my mother came home, I told her what was happening to my sister. All hell broke loose and I, of course, caused the great family break-up. I did find out that this incident wasn't the only time they did this to my sister. I just couldn't take seeing my sister hurt any more.
My mother received a newspaper clipping in the mid seventies that said that Rudy had drowned. I understand that it was probably a case where he had actually been murdered.

Some of the reason I have problems that I have with my father is that I look just like him and to top it off my mother never failed to remind me of the fact. One day, when I was very small and was angry at something that my mother had done to me, she turned around to me and said "You're just angry like your father". That was the corner stone of me not wanting to be angry or feel angry or act angry. Why in God's name would I want to be my father?

I have for years had periods where I feel like I am around someone who is really dark. I feel almost as if I have been engulfed with this darkness that has no redeeming qualities. They see the entire world to be manipulated, controlled, or dominated. Women are just things. The races are hated and despised. It is only recently that I have understood how much of my father I was bathed in and how hard it has been to face my feelings about my father that bind me to him. Washing myself of him has been a difficult task. I have found it leaves me vulnerable to others like my father.

I know that I am not my father but I also know that some part of me still struggles with my time and connection to him.

Response from Dr. DeFoore

Thank you for this excellent contribution. Everyone struggles either consciously or unconsciously with not "being" their father or mother. The effort to be truly yourself is one of the most important pursuits of life. I think many will benefit from your story.