Excerpt
Chapter Three

No One To Watch Over Me

Somebody once told me that girls who grow up without a father would grow up desperate for male companionship. That person said that fatherless girls attach themselves too easily and too quickly to men because they are in search of a father’s love that they never got.
I disagree. I never wanted a substitute for my father’s love. I always wanted to find my actual father. I knew that a father’s love couldn’t be that easily replaced. There was no point in searching for my father’s love from a husband or a boyfriend. That would not be fair. Even when someone told me what kind of a man my father was, I still wanted to be a part of his life. I still wanted to be the apple of his eye. My father was supposed to be the first man in my life. My father was supposed to teach me how to be a responsible woman. Instead, I had to do that on my own.
My father never stopped over to see me after work. He never shared a meal with me, or sent anyone to our house to give me a piece of bread. Often times, I didn’t have any food to eat. I thank God for the neighbors that I had who helped to care for me. I often ate at a friend’s house. I didn’t even have money for bus transportation to get to school on a regular basis. It was a struggle for my mother to raise me. A father’s guidance and financial support would have been helpful.
I never had a dad to protect me from danger as I grew up, or to stand up for me and chase the predators away. The little girl in me wanted desperately to experience the love between a father and a daughter. I don’t remember ever writing him a Father’s Day card or feeling the warmth of his arms around me. I don’t remember much about him at all; to me he was a fuzzy image that seemed to creep into my dreams. Although he was not there, he was everywhere; I could not escape the idea of him, his image, or his absence.