From Hurt to Healing by Jayne Martin

April 1, 2022 | By Women Writers Women Books | Reply More

My father’s hands are missing from my life

My father’s hands did not hold mine, lift me when I fell, muss my hair

or pretend to steal my nose, point the way or beckon me to follow.

My father’s hands did not comfort me when I cried,

make shadow puppets to make me smile,

or applaud any of my achievements.

My father’s hands never signed a card, “love, Dad.”

My father was 42 when I was born, my mother 32. They’d been together since she was 17. For fifteen years he had her to himself. Theirs was a party lifestyle; traveling anywhere on a whim, gambling, drinking, smoking pot and, for my father, using morphine. A drug he’d taken while in the Army for a back injury that followed him into civilian life. He would have been happy for their lives to continue like that forever, but my mother wanted a child. I will never know for certain what his thoughts were, but I imagine that as I grew inside my mother, taking her body for my own, his resentment grew, as well. Unwilling to settle down, to give up the drugs and booze, he ended up losing us both. My mother left him to return home to her family while still pregnant with me and, though repeated attempts at reconciliation were made, he disappeared from my life when I was five.

One out of three women in the U.S. identify as fatherless: Through death, divorce, abandonment, drugs, alcohol, father unknown at birth. Or sometimes the father is there physically, but completely absent emotionally, withholding and cold. It’s a staggering statistic, a sisterhood no little girl would choose. One that often results in the child growing into a woman who seeks out emotionally unavailable men over and over, reenacting the relationship with the father. For a fatherless daughter, sex and love can become conflated. Promiscuity, using sex to get love, leaves her empty and alone time and again. When these relationships fail, the message of never being good enough is reinforced.

In place of a flesh-and-blood dad, I created an idealized version in my young mind. Strong, handsome, powerful, and there — always there for me. He would call me “Princess,” just like the dad on “Father Knows Best,” my favorite show. Later, “Mr. Anderson” would be replaced by “Blake Carrington.” Meanwhile, my single mother was doing her best to eke out a life for us, which often involved moving from one relative’s house to another’s. I was convinced that’s why Daddy didn’t call, that he couldn’t find us and unjustly blamed her. When I finally did see my father again, I was 14 and already in the destructive cycle of forming crushes on boys that had no interest in me. And Dad? Well, he was nothing like I’d imagined. When my mother took me to see him I found a man who was thin, balding, and working in a shoe store. Still, I didn’t care. I wanted so badly to run into his arms, but they never opened.

I never planned to write a memoir. Memory is like shards of glass from a broken mirror where pieces have gone missing. Not only does it present a distorted image, the edges are sharp and can draw blood. I’d long relegated those fragments to a dusty corner of my mind where I thought them long forgotten. I had no idea how strongly they were still controlling me until they surfaced again in the writing of this book.

In a workshop with the genius flash fiction writer, Meg Pokrass, I wrote what was to become the first two stories of “The Daddy Chronicles,” although I had no idea that’s what they were at the time. “The Other Woman” is a story about a woman depressed and draped over a chair sipping vodka having been stood up by her married lover. In “First Love” a baby in a playpen tries to get the attention of her father who turns up the sound on the television to drown out her cries. As I read these two stories side-by-side, the realization hit me like a truck. Not only were they the same character years apart, they were both me.

The temptation to leave well enough alone was strong. But was it really “well enough?” I’d long felt broken in ways I didn’t understand. A low-grade depression like a fog that never completely lifted. As an adult, I thought I’d made peace with my father. I rationalized: Whatever in his past made him who he was, he simply could not give what he didn’t have. As it turned out, there was still a child inside me hurting and she wanted her say. I was surprised by the anger and sadness that rose up from her, and I knew I would never truly be healed until she was.

In the writing of “The Daddy Chronicles,” I tried to keep my adult self with all my judgement and benefit of hindsight out of the way and allow my inner-child’s voice to dominate the narrative. The chapters present like a childhood game of “connect the dots,” each small scene revealing a little more of our journey from hurt to healing. This book is dedicated to all the fatherless daughters. Know that you are not alone.

—

Jayne Martin is a Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfictions nominee, and a recipient of Vestal Review’s VERA Award. Her books include a collection of humor essays, “Suitable for Giving: A Collection of Wit with a Side of Wry,” “Tender Cuts,” a collection of microfiction from Vine Leaves Press, and “The Daddy Chronicles-Memoir of a Fatherless Daughter,” from Whiskey Tit Books. She lives near Santa Barbara, California, but dreams of living in Paris. Find her at www.jaynemartin-writer.com, on Twitter @Jayne_Martin and Facebook @JayneMartin-Author.

THE DADDY CHRONICLES

One out of three women in the U.S. identify as fatherless. An absent father who occasionally appears to bestow his affections only to disappear again leads a daughter to seek out others like him – men who are charismatic, but emotionally unavailable – throughout her lifetime.

In this emotionally-charged memoir written in cinematic vignettes, Jayne Martin fearlessly bares the parts of her that were broken when her father left the family upon her birth and, in doing so, leads readers on their own journey toward wholeness and healing. Whether you are a fatherless daughter or someone who loves one, The Daddy Chronicles will tear at your heart and open a world of understanding.

BUY HERE

Tags: featured, women writers