The Picture

Before my father's funeral we were putting photos together and I was looking for a specific picture of him holding me as a toddler. I liked to go around the yard pointing at things and he liked carrying me around to do this. Even though I don't actually remember, it's one of the few good memories of him accepting me and being nice. I prayed, hands and knees, for 'God' to please help me find that picture. I said I'd believe again. I'd be good again. I'd do anything. Silence as usual. 

A year and a half later by a huge chance I dug into an old box and found that picture. My heart started racing and all the fears came back: Hell, Rapture, Punishment, etc... But why? My reaction was off and I couldn't figure out why. The panic quickly turned to anger. If there was a 'God' and his "good and faithful servant" has just joined him at the pearly gates, then why in fuck couldn't he do this one thing for me? The 'God' I no longer believed in had left me alone as always. 

I'm sad for that little girl in the picture. She's about to be abandoned by every male figure in her life. She'll never feel safety and love in daddy's arms. She will stand at the card section of Target on Father's day and call her youngest brother to talk her through the purchase as none of the cards fit this troubled relationship. She will be told which child was his favorite and that it sure wasn't her. She will have him tell her at 16 that he doesn't like to look at her because she looks like her mother. She will later say to him, "I love you, dad, but I don't like you." and this moment of honesty will forever be held against her. When he almost dies many years before his actual death, she will stand in the ICU with her crying brothers on one side of the bed, her lock jawed on the other side, and hear him say, "I want you to know I love you all" and think "Die now. Die before you say something mean to me. Let those be your last words." When he lives through that she'll try to hold hope that it meant 'God' will reconcile their relationship and it will never happen. She will fight a woman from the church that called the hospital who told her she wasn't his daughter because she's known him for years and he'd never spoken of her. She will seek out any male attention in hopes of getting that affirmation that never came. She will be starved for approval and wounded again and again. She will live in envy of all the women who had fathers that adored them.

That picture was the only moment I had where it appeared that I mattered to him.