I am sensitive to the role models that pass through my children’s lives. Not for the obvious reasons, I care less about their differing values to mine (as long as they’re not morally corrupt!) in fact I enjoy my children being exposed to different view points and exciting their curiosity and questioning, but I mind greatly about their consistency in our lives.
I know I can’t control where life takes us and friends pass through over the years and that itself is a great lesson for my children, but there is still a place for acknowledging the importance of each role model and their influence.
I speak from a place of loss. I speak from a place of sensitivity to those moments where an adult left my childhood world without word or explanation.
Growing up, the role of father was a gaping hole in my life, my own being emotionally incapable of filling it. Later in life, my early choice of boyfriends certainly reflected my desire for a father figure before therapy and personal development moved me beyond it. But in my childhood itself, certain men stepped forward to offer themselves as a surrogate; family friends, my mother’s boyfriend, uncles, many spoke directly to me, acknowledging the gap and asking permission to represent a father to me.
Every single one left me.
Not a single one remains in my life as a guide or elder. This is not a pity party, I have beautiful support around me now, but at the moments of their leaving, I grieved a loss every time, alone and unacknowledged. Each one just disappeared from my life, sometimes out of loyalty to my mother; sometimes out of separation from my mother; others, I project, because I was too challenging or difficult for their perspective, but for whatever reason they felt no need to say goodbye. And that hurt beyond measure.
So for my children, I ask, when life takes you away from us, when our paths diverge, please just take a moment to say farewell.