My Knight in Shining Armour – Missing…

~ Posted 16th September 2016 ~
 
This morning I watched a video on Facebook (Link below), that had me sobbing practically all the way through.  I contemplated my overwhelming emotions and realized once again how they must have surfaced through my own childhood longings to have my daddy in my life.  They were Patty’s broken hearted emotions that I was feeling as I watched the video, but there was also a mixture of extremely happy emotions surfacing as I (Patty) became totally caught up in visualizing myself in the position of the man whose dream was finally made to come true. 
 
At the age of 12 years, I wrote my very first poem.  I remember deliberately changing the character in the poem to “a boy”, so that if my mother found the poem, she wouldn’t know that I had written about my own deep seated feelings at the time.  She seemed to have eyes in the back of her head and invisible ears everywhere… we could hide nothing from her… nothing of ours was sacred… not our feelings, not our belongings, not our friends… nothing.  She made herself our god… if she said “Jump” we jumped… There was no escaping her tyranny towards us.
 
The little boy in the poem represented me and my desperate longings for my father to be in my life, along with a sense of complete hopelessness… knowing that it was never going to be. 
 
In my mind, I imagined that if my father could be in our lives, then he would be able to see how much my sister and I were suffering, and he would "save us"… My knight in shining armour. 
 
I fantasized about how he would rescue us with his mighty love and power. 
 
But in reality, my dad is a small gentle natured man… he stood no chance against my mother’s aggressive, clever, manipulating power!  I knew that my quest for my father’s life-saving presence was a completely futile one, hence the words I chose for that very first poem. 

I think the reader will be able to see just how deep my sense of longing as well as my sense of abject hopelessness was when I wrote this.
 
A DADDY FOR ME
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All alone in a great orphanage hall,
A little boy sits against a big stone wall.
A big silver tear runs down the little boy’s cheek,
As he thinks of a father that might one day him come seek.
He thinks how nice a daddy would be,
They would play together and build a house in a tree.
At night he would sit on his daddy’s knee,
And his daddy would tell him a story or three.
Then he would tuck him snug in bed,
After he’s made sure he’s been jolly well fed.
 
*****
 
Next morning the matron came in with glee,
And shouted, “There will be a father for you at three!”
The little boy did not move.
She touched his shoulder,
He toppled over.
Then she said, “He’s dead, he’s dead.”
The little boy’s heart had broken in three,
So he did not live,
For his new daddy to see.
 
(1969 – 12 years old)
 
At the time, our mother was married to our abusive stepfather.  I can remember how happy my sister and I were when she married him.  We were going to have a daddy (protector) in our lives at last.
 
A photo of my little sister and I, the day our mother married “The Monster”… Philip (PJJ) was his name!

Little did we know at the time that our new daddy would become yet another source of awful suffering for us both.  A cruel and heartless child molester… He beat and sexually abused and raped me regularly (I cannot speak for my sister, but I did do my best to take as much of the punishments as I could to protect her).  I do know now though, that our stepfather’s brother (HJ) who was just a little older than my sister and I, raped her on more than one occasion, unbeknownst to me at the time.
 
I do have the blessing of my own biological father in my life at last (in my 50’s, and he 85 years old now), living only two blocks away from me.  Sadly, we can’t communicate well due to his deafness and so I have never really felt that I’ve had the chance to be “his little girl” (except for one wonderful occasion I will share soon).  I cherish every moment I can be in his presence.  I don’t mind that sometimes he sleeps through my whole visit, or that we can’t communicate well together and he just nods and laughs when I try to tell him something… (realizing he never really heard what I said.)
 
About the only really happy childhood memory I have of being with my dad was when we were visiting on school holidays, and he would take us to the train park in Bulawayo, (in Rhodesia at the time)… to ride on the mini train. I don’t remember much else, but then, my memory is very poor for most things especially relating to my past.

I do feel as though I was cheated by a life without my own dad in it.  I know how difficult my mother made it for us to spend time with him, or for him to get close to us. 
 
I love my dear old daddy so much and hope that one day, even on the other side of the veil, we will be able to catch up on the daddy/daughter lifetime we missed out on together.

~ Pana
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsrbYxy-Vpo  A FATHER LOST FOR 37 YEARS Fox Mobbed