Never Seen

Ignored by the one you most want to be seen by

"I think that's my dad," I thought to myself. I sat on the small, single-stepped cement porch, gray paint chipping, red underneath. It was a summer's eve in front of the small yellow house. I watched an old white car, probably a Chevy or Ford, pull up. The sun was setting behind him, casting his silhouette - a tall, slender man with a black-rimmed cowboy hat, boots, and a white button-up shirt partially unbuttoned to expose his chest; sleeves rolled. In his right hand, a brown paper bag hid a bottle of liquor.

He walked towards me, it seemed like slow motion - a scene from an old western across the straw-like grass. But he wasn't walking to meet me. He went right past me without a word, opened the rickety screen door, and stepped into the living room.

"I think that's my dad," I said again to myself, frozen on the step, completely dismayed. "Was that my dad?" I asked myself several times. It couldn’t have been him, could it? If it were, why wouldn’t he speak to me? How could he walk right around me as though I were an object? It felt like he went through me; how could he not see me? 

Questions began to rustle through my little mind; a surge of wind released inside, leaves dancing on a blustery fall day.

Behind the Screen Door

I turned back to the screen door. Inside, I heard laughter - a song not often sung in my household, now coming from the kitchen. I leaned in, pressing my small, sun-kissed cheek against the dusty screen to hear what was being said and desperate to understand why they were laughing. I listened until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I turned my face away and stood paralyzed before the door.

I don't know how long I stood there, gazing at the handle. But it felt like minutes before I could muster the courage to extend my arm, wrap my tiny hand around the handle…and I paused again. In those few seconds with pause, a tsunami of "What if's...?" overwhelmed my entire body. It prevented me from opening the door. 

"What if they are laughing because they’re happy I’m not there? What if I don't belong? What if he doesn't want me there?" “What if he..?” The questions kept coming.

I finally reminded myself: my mom and big sister, Linda, were there. They wanted me. With that, I opened the door and stepped into the small, smoky living room. I made my way into the kitchen where all three sat around the dirty card table we used for dining. 

My mom’s bottle of Old English 800 Malt Liquor and one of her many stolen glasses from The Spare Room, never empty, sat before her. Across from her, this man, my dad, whom I’d met twice before. In front of him was his brown bag with the top of it wrapped snugly around the neck of the bottle; his right hand rested on the table and he held it tightly as though it might leap from his presence and fill someone else’s glass with the elixir he nursed. Linda sat on his left leg. I'd always been told he loved Linda. I used to wish I was her, to have known and been loved by him too.

The Interruption

The laughter and conversation continued as I stood to the left of my mom, waiting for acknowledgment. I waited. And I waited. Nothing. Not a word. I stood quietly, seeing the awkward smile on my sister’s face, listening to the laughter. It was like watching a TV show - I looked at them, but they did not see me.

Finally, I cleared my throat and said, "Hi." A silence fell upon us like an unforeseen invasion. They all looked at me. There was no warmth or welcome in either of my parents’ eyes. Instead, I knew in an instant: I had just interrupted something. In that split second, the fear of one of my many "What ifs?" became my reality - the reality that I did not belong.

"Go to your room." My little mind didn’t register it. I must've heard wrong. Why would I have to go to my room? I didn’t do anything...did I?

He said it again, "Go to your room." I stood there, feeling something hit me deep in my belly, unable to move. I stood and waited for my mom to defend me, to welcome me into that space, to tell him I did belong, that he was the intruder. And yet another part of me stood defiantly, knowing he didn’t belong. 

Who was this man? This man I’d met twice before, at age 3 and age 4. Who did he think he was?

The Lasting Imprint

Although they were few, with each encounter, he brought a deep pain that bled into the marrow of my soul, projecting disdain through his indifference towards me. This man, Falanco, better known as ‘Buck,’ had violated the tenderness of my young heart. This caused stony foundations to be laid, which later erected impenetrable walls as an attempt to guard it from the sting of rejection that seemed to taunt me in future relationships. That rejection later became an abyss of patterns and cycles I could not easily identify nor escape.

Fear of rejection and pain later became an inevitable attribute in each relational story of my life.

I looked my mom in her drunken eyes, silently pleading with her to say something, anything. To let him know I belonged, this was my home. But instead, she acceded to his demand for my departure: "Listen to your father and do what he says."

My dad never saw me. 

Not ever.

Moving Forward

This profound childhood experience was just the first ripple in understanding connection, belonging, and the unseen impacts of our earliest moments. I'll share more about how these deep feelings of rejection manifested in my life, the challenging patterns that emerged, and ultimately, the path I discovered to not just understand these experiences, but to truly heal and embrace authentic connection in spite of them rather than allow them to continue to define me.