Before I answer that, let me explain something.
Most of you probably know by now ( because I’ve mentioned it ad nauseum!) I’m the only child of divorced parents. My parents separated when I was an infant and quickly divorced, each realizing the mistake they’d made. Too bad they didn’t realize it before a child came into the mix, but that’s just my anger speaking.
Any way…
Mom worked full time and I rarely – if ever – saw my father. On the occasions I did, the day usually ended with tears.
Fast forward to my teen years. Suddenly and without warning, my father wanted to be a presence in my life. I was an overweight, myopic, shy, and wicked smart girl ( which earned me no points with my peers!) who had no friends. So when my father wanted to be a part of my life, actually asked to spend time with me, I was, to say the very least, thrilled. Our weekend visits became more frequent, and I spent an entire summer at his home with him and my step-mother ( a truly lovely woman). For the first time in my life, I felt like someone wanted me around; wanted to spend time with me. Me.
Fast forward to the college years. My decision to go to nursing school instead of into medicine drove a bit of a wedge between our relationship. To this day I feel the only reason my father wanted me to go to med school was because he wanted to brag about “my daughter the doctor.” To an uneducated, never having graduated high school man, this was, apparently, a big ego boost to him and I’d shot an arrow into his happiness bubble by refusing to be a physician. Our time spent together turned infrequent again. He claimed it was because he was working hard. He may have been. But I knew the real reason.
More years go by and it’s time for me to get married. What should have been the happiest time of my life…wasn’t. Let’s just be truthful here and say when your parents are divorced and they need to be together at an event supporting you, there is a great deal of tension in the air. The tension at my wedding and during the time leading up to it was so thick even a Roncomatic knife wouldn’t have been able to cut through it.
I didn’t see my father for almost 4 years after I married. Then I had a baby. You’d think that as the only grandchild my father would have been all over this child like white on rice. He probably would have if I hadn’t been the mom.
My daughter is now 28 and I haven’t seen my father since she was 8 years old.
Why did I tell you all this? The title of this MFRW blog piece today is supposed to be 5 ways to win my heart. For me, there is really only one way to win, claim, and keep my heart. And that’s to give me the precious gift of your time. Time is so fleeting, that any amount of it we can spend with, and give to, the people we love most in the world, is a good thing. All I ever wanted was someone to think of me enough, love me enough, to want to spend time with me.
So, the way to my heart? Yeah. It’s a straight road if you only take…the time.
This piece was a little depressing even for me, but I bet the other authors in this blog hop have happier tales to tell. Why don’t you hop on over and see what they have to say?
Peggy Jaeger, Author 