Dads

Dianne over at Forks Off The Moment has written an incredible post. It tells about the struggle she had raising her son as a single mother and it tells about Everyday Kindness which is something she is trying to live by. I sent her an e-mail and congratulated her on a fine post. (She is so good, I recommend you read her regularly.)

It got me to thinking about my father. He wasn't much of one. Al Simser left my mother for one of his girlfriends when I was about 3 years old. He was a womanizer and he was a salesman who had girlfriends all over the state. I have one memory of him when I was little. He and Doris came up and picked me up and took me for a ride in his convertible. Mom told me later that I called him Al and was already calling my grandfather "Dad." (Which is what my mother and all her sisters called him.) He never came back.

When I graduated from High School I sent him an announcement. I figured the $25.00 a month he sent once in awhile entitled him to at least an invitation. I did get a card back telling me I was welcome to come down to their home any time. I was disappointed.

When I was in college I was dating a really neat girl who had been adopted. She had looked up her birth mother and had a really nice relationship with her. She encouraged me to contact my father, so I did.

I was invited to come to Des Moines (Yes, all this time he had lived 30 miles away from me and never once had he contacted me.) So I went down and met him. I liked his wife, Doris, (the woman he had left my mother for) as she was friendly and a really nice person. Al had raised her two sons and so I guess he didn't need me. Doris told me that he was very strict with them as he thought they were a reflection on him.

I went down several times but I finally figured out that it was always me going down to visit him. I wasn't really invited (except by Doris) and eventually stopped going. I did keep in touch with Doris and enjoyed that contact.

Al left her for a woman he met who lived in Atlantic, Iowa. He did not stop womanizing. My cousin John's wife told me about how he tried to pick her and her girl friend up in a bar in Des Moines and get them to go back to his room for some "fun" - She recognized his last name and asked him if he was related to me. he acknowledged that I was "probably" his son. From then on he became "probably" my father.

Al Simser wasn't really a presence in my life but it probably bothered me that I didn't have him there. I had a father figure in my grandfather who was the finest man I have ever known. I also had some great Uncles who "filled in" as a father. All in all he wasn't much of a person as far as I was concerned.

That is probably why when his third wife invited me down to Atlantic to visit his grave I wrote and told her that since he had chosen not to have a relationship with me in life I chose not to have one with him in death. I suppose I would have liked the emotional closeness that I missed out on by not having a father but I won't ever know. I know I tried once to have a close relationship and it didn't work out and that caused me a great deal of sadness. But all in all I am all right.

I hate it, though, when I see kids who don't have a father in their lives because their father has left their mother for one reason or another. I despise deadbeat dads. I don't like it when I hear about kids who need glasses or something and the mother who is doing her best to raise the little girl who needs the glasses and her sister and brother can't afford them and tells the clerk "I will have to see if her father will pay for them." (She had her glasses the next day but don't tell anyone.)

If I had a lot of money I would start a foundation to help these moms and their kids.

What is it about the male ego that will enable them to justify leaving their wife and kids with nothing just so they can have a 'trophy wife." I can understand two people not being able to stay married but I can't understand not taking care of your kids.

I think I told Dianne that we needed to have people tested before they can have children. If they can't pass the test they can't have the kids. That would really be a "No Child Left Behind" Act. I am sure the Republicans can come up with a test. After all they seem to be able to do it for everything else.

Anyway the one thing I really regret is that I never had any kids. So I adopt other people's if they will let me and that is not often. I get to be an Uncle and a Brother and I guess that is enough. If you have a chance, do something nice for a kid. And do it without hope of fee or reward. And Always Remember That You Are Loved. Hugs, Uncle j-bear