Innocence Lost

I was nearly four years old the day my father didn’t come home. When I finally asked my mother where he was, I was told the truth. My parents divorced. I was the last one to find out...

I was nearly four years old the day my father didn’t come home. When I finally asked my mother where he was, I was told the truth. My parents divorced. I was the last one to find out. They didn’t know how to explain it to me, so they decided saying nothing was the best approach to prepare me for the epic fallout that would change my life forever. After those words crushed me like colossal boulders, panic and misery knotted around my lungs, their elongated tentacles undulating, squeezing the life out of my tiny body. I couldn’t breathe. My stomach nosedived, and sadness strangled me. I knew life would never be the same, and it wasn’t.

At four years old, I was too small to be as viciously enraged from the deception as I would ultimately become as an adolescent and young adult. At that moment, I just wanted my daddy. Nothing else mattered. What arose in my father’s absence was a tormenting and dreadful void, a chunk of my heart vanishing into thin air. Time ceased. All I could think about was my father. Where was he? What was he doing? Would I ever see him again? Did he forget about me? All these questions slashed my brain into shattered fragments that were never whole again. He was the first man I ever loved, and now he was gone.

Instances that were previously predictable and insignificant now held substantial importance and magnitude. Things I never previously contemplated now flooded my terrified body that was suffocating under the monstrous weight of heart wrenching loss. I never questioned if I would see my father. I never had to worry about it. Now he was gone, and that agonizing ache crushed me to my core.

The unbearable loss at such a young age, coupled with the devastation and trauma of not being adequately prepared for this life altering event, rewired my little brain from a realm of security to one of distrust and constant vigilance. It no longer was safe to trust. If my father could leave without warning, what other maladies could potentially befall me? The possibilities my imagination crafted were limitless.

When my father left, this defining moment in my young life propelled me into a whole new universe of which I wanted no part. Suddenly, the intimate landscape of my private world mutated into something that was foreign and unrecognizable. Not only was I lost, but I was also stripped of my perception of safety. My innocence was annihilated, and my pure inclination toward faith and security was obliterated. I realized I needed to keep my guard up and not rely on anything or anyone because nothing seemed dependable any longer. I believed the second I let myself trust, the rug would be pulled out from me. I wasn’t willing to take the chance of my world being toppled yet again.

Impenetrable walls shot up around my heart like bullets from a drawn gun. Unknowingly created to provide me with an illusion of protection, as a child, I didn’t possess the awareness to create them purposefully. It was done out of innate necessity. The fortifications I constructed were a natural outgrowth of the pain. I just needed to survive and suppress the grief.

My tiny brain whispered that it must’ve been my fault that my father had left. I must’ve done something horrible to bring this unspeakable calamity onto myself. Or worse yet, maybe I just wasn’t good enough to stick around for. I deemed myself unworthy and not lovable. Why else would he leave me? If I was worth it, there would’ve been no way this would’ve happened. I blamed myself.

At the time of the divorce, my father gambled excessively. Craps and betting horses were his wagers of choice. At the family party after my baptism, my grandfather used the restroom and discovered my father and his friends playing craps on the bathroom floor. I recall a picture of me placed on a table at the restaurant in my christening outfit, positioned perfectly next to a spread-out deck of cards and red dice.

My father was also an alcoholic. His extreme drinking put a massive strain on the already tenuous marriage. The breaking point came when one night, my father and his friends drank so much, they impulsively hopped a flight to Puerto Rico. My mother was enraged, and the marriage collapsed.

After the divorce, everyone around me moved on with life apparently reasoning that the best course of action would be to pretend the loss didn’t occur. Maybe by not talking about it they thought I would forget, but the chasm in my heart only grew fiercer.

Instead of being comforted, I morphed into the comforter. My mother was devastated by the split. She was twenty-seven years old with a four-year-old child and no job, saddled with a house she couldn’t pay for. I agonized that if she didn’t figure life out soon that she would be my next loss, burdened with responsibilities maybe she just didn’t want. I incessantly checked in on her to gauge her emotional temperature, but didn’t do the same for myself. That behavior stalked me into adulthood. I learned how to read the room at a very early age.

A few years later in early elementary school, bullying began. This minimized my self-worth even further by reinforcing my conviction that not only was I unlovable, but evidently, I was unlikeable as well. I always felt different than the other kids, like I was concealing a terrible secret that I was an awful child for making my father leave. Anxiety was my constant and reliable companion.

About a decade later, my father got sober and reigned in his gambling. I dubbed it controlled chaos as our little joke. I remember my mother would say that my father was now like night and day, and unfortunately, she fell in love with him during his night. His life transformed, and ultimately, our relationship blossomed, but that little girl inside of me was still mired in pain. Even though he changed into the man I always hoped he would be, the damage to my psyche was already accomplished. The self-deprecation ran deep, and its razor-sharp talons held me prisoner.

As an adult, the armor I craved for my survival during childhood backfired, and I found myself isolated and lonely, fearful of vulnerability and true closeness. Even in a packed room, I felt alone, my forced smile and buoyant banter shielding the little girl who was afraid of the world. I grew up believing I was less than, and that I certainly wasn’t good enough to stick around for. That belief swung the door of the universe wide open and invited into my world much that wasn’t desirable for me.

What I ultimately attracted into my life resonated effortlessly with the damaging vibe I was radiating into the world. I became a people-pleaser, saying yes, when my soul was screaming no. I was terrified of abandonment, and just wanted to be accepted. For a time, I nearly sold my soul in pursuit of that goal, inserting myself into situations that weren’t good for me, just wanting to be loved. Searching for validation became a powerful addiction. I lost myself, not knowing I had the power all along to love myself instead. While thankfully there’s been a lot of internal healing and soul searching, a lot of times, I still struggle.

When my father died, I transformed into that little girl who just yearned to be with her dad. In the early days of his passing, once again, I felt as if I was sucking in my breath, longing to see him. I wanted to be with him so badly that nothing else mattered. Now, there will be no next time, and that little girl is crushed by the loss all over again.