Wednesday, October 3, 2018

When Rumors become Reality

Random actions often have a consequential impact. Whether by the design of the universe or by the unseen hand of God, the things we often do with the least amount of forethought end up having some of the most lasting impacts on our life. Such was the case for me on Sep 21, 2018. On that day during a break at work, I randomly typed a name into a google search. That random act completely tore me apart that day and even two weeks later I still am walking about in a state of suspended animation.
On that day, I typed my father's name into Google. Due to my job and the position I hold with the AAU, I was planning a trip to head to our annual convention to be held in his city in just a few weeks. I was planning to go see him and catch up on times since we had last spoken. Having read an article earlier in the year about him being missing for a short time, I was concerned for his health. Knowing I would be heading that way shortly had given me a sense of peace that I would be able to check on him without disrupting my work schedule more than had already been planned. But it was not to be. When the search results came back, all I could see were numerous obituary posts about my father. Immediately a sense of sadness came over me not only at his passing but at the missed moment. But it was when I clicked on the many obituaries that were posted my life once again went into a sickening tailspin that initiated from a lie told by some and covered up by many for 54 years. For my father had been dead for about one month, having passed Aug 22, 2018. Here it was a month later and no one reached out to me to let me know. Not his other children, not his brother as I was always told knew the whole story and would contact me if anything happened, not his former church secretary that hid numerous letters written to the church in the years after he relocated telling them about me in order to protect him and the new church he was then serving, not even the friends I met in life's journey that knew him and me and were aware of the situation thru other people way before they ever met me. No one.
The crushing weight of being rejected once again not only in life but in death was too much for me to handle. As much as I tried to hold it together at work, I could not, sobbing uncontrollably on the bathroom floor. This hurt worse than every fight I got into over him, every profanity-laced tirade against my mother about him. Having no father physically present while growing up in communities where the father was present in the majority of homes was a demoralizing thing to deal with as a child. No father to teach me how to be a man. No father to discipline me when I got out of line. No father to take me to my baseball, football, soccer games, wrestling practices or gymnastics meets. Yet that was all his choice in order to save his career.
From the earliest time I had a phone number memorized that I was to call in case of emergency. It was my one lifeline to him. A voice on the other end to answer my questions. I still have the number memorized to this day. This was in a time before cell phones, pagers, and apps that let you have a different number to give people than your real number. So if I called that number I would reach him, directly. I rarely used it when I was young for I had the fear of God driven into me that if I ever revealed who my father was, I would ruin his life, my mother's life; I would tear the community and churches apart. Whenever I did use it I felt guilty and waited for the wrath of God to fall on me for daring to call him my father. I eventually moved away from the community when I was 15 and went to stay with relatives down south because I could not put up with the hypocrisy or the abuse I received from my mother for literally beating me for him not choosing her.  She didn't want me, tried to give me away and only had me to try to lock him down after being in some type of relationship with him for close to 15 years. I couldn't deal with it anymore and left the church for several years over it. Little did I know that move I made down south would in some minds further the story that I was not really his child because my mother had left town to have me and now I was moving away to the same state, although a different city. Another random action.

As an adult, I reached out to him a few times. He always responded and never once told me no to any of my requests. When my mother died in 1992 I called him to let him know. He sent me money to aid in her burial. When I was dealing with my first true experience with church hurt during my first pastorate in 1994 with no one else to turn to, I drove all the way from Virginia to his city in Ohio (pre GPS days) with the determination that he would own up to me that day and help me, or come Sunday I would share copies of every love letter he had written my mother with the entire congregation. Him not knowing my plans when he met me owned up to me and the tempest within me was calmed if only for a season.
In 2002 I finally had enough of the lies. I was being called a liar by my church for not saying who my father was like he was a common criminal. Because I claim New Jersey as my home - even though I was born in Virginia a month premature during a trip my mother made to see some friends before I was to be born, I was branded a liar. Why couldn't I tell them who he was if I wasn't ashamed of him or was there something in his past that would have caused them not to call me? I wrote my dad and literally called him on the carpet for abandoning me. That I had had a colossal error in judgment and had a child out of wedlock myself yet I didn't hide her from the church. In retrospect it was kinda funny to see the son wrestle scriptural points and positions with his father who was a biblical college professor. But back down I would not. I offered him right then an opportunity to have a DNA test I would pay for if he had any doubts. For now, as an adult, I had begun to hear the doubts over whether I was his or not based on the temperament and alcoholic addiction of my mother. That just because I looked like him didn't mean I was his. I had run into enough people who lived in his city as well as where I had grown up and it reduced me to being a little kid all over again if asked anything about my father. He refused the test and wholeheartedly said he was my father. He actually got real mad at me for saying it but what he didn't know is I was talking to people that knew his wife's family that told a whole different story than what I heard growing up - that my mother was pinning me on him when I wasn't his. He explained the situation in ways that filled in some gaps but made it clear his number one priority was saving his career when she rejected his offer of support and care but not marriage. Which I corroborated with the letters from him that she had kept up until her death. While I didn't agree with the reasoning I understood as it is commonplace occurrence in the ministry. In 2004 he finally met two of his grandchildren for the first time face to face when he came and preached for me in North Carolina.
At no time did he ever reject me, to me. Never. I have no doubt that he loved me but he could not and did not show it because of what he felt it would ultimately cost him. A reputation, a career, the adoration of the other children, and who knows what else. After all, to tell a lie for 54 years and keep it going is kind of an incredible thing. But what he did do was not reveal or deny me to anyone else. So while protecting himself he left me exposed to deal with all of the hurt and pain. Imagine the pain  I felt listening to a tribute radio show all about him and they lovingly gush about all his children being there for him and what a man he was and I wasn't there. Knowing the brothers and sisters are all also in the ministry of some type and not a word from one of them. Not acknowledged. Not known. Rejected again. Is it because he never told them? Or is it because he told them and they can't process the fact that the rumor is a reality? Or is it the whole "we will understand it better by and by" mindset and move on with your life famous in church circles when they don't want to deal with anything unpleasant? When I needed him as a child he was never there. Only once did I physically see him and talk with him while in counseling over him during Middle School. In a small room closed to the eyes of the world protected by confidentially, I finally laid my eyes on the one who I was always told I was his twin. It would be close to 40 years later (sound familiar) when I saw him again.

I never got what I needed from him as a child. That was forgiven. All I needed from him as an adult was acknowledgment not acceptance. As a man. As being a part of him, even if unplanned or uncomfortable. That was all I sought. From him. From them. For me, and my children who never got to really know their grandfather. They never gave him a cute nickname. Never posed for pictures with him. Never had him as the giant of the faith as he was, to speak into their life. The spiritual implications are staggering.

Eventually, I will write a book on this. There is so much more to tell and so much more to teach. Too many of us deal with this on so many levels. My little bit of sharing my story has revealed much of the same pain in the pulpit of churches across this land as preachers have been abandoned by their fathers in order to save themselves, yet speak of it in glowing spiritual terms. Some even take credit for the child's accomplishments even though they did not contribute anything more than the dna.

I am finally free to share this with the world.


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