The Loser

Today my mother and I are hosting a baby shower for my sister-in-law. My brother will be there, too (as long as it ends before the Bears kickoff) as apparently a lot of dads-to-be now join in in what used to be a "girls ony" deal. I actually think that is pretty cool, because it shows how important dads are in a child's life - even before the actual birth. And dads-to-be who go to a shower filled with women on a weekend afternoon and smile and be polite while watching their wife opening gifts are definitely a special (yet thankfully growing) breed. You just know, from these dads' patience and tolerance during the age-old female ritual of luncheons and gift giving and cake, that they are going to be very special fathers.

I know my brother is going to be an awesome dad, because he has been a surrogate dad to my Lexie her whole life. See, I didn't exactly make the best selection in the father department when it came to my daughter. Ok, so there wasn't really even any "selection" at all. Lexie was the most wonderful "accident" to ever happen to me. Unfortunately, she really got gypped in the dad department.

Initially, when I found out I was pregnant, Loser wanted to get married and settle down. I didn't - for several reasons. One of the main ones was that I didn't love him. The second biggie was that he had been dating someone else for quite a while. I nipped that in the bud immediately. I was still stuck in a bad place in my life, and wasn't even sure I was ready to have a baby myself. Thankfully, God intervened, and long story short, Lexie basically saved my life.

In the beginning, Loser swore up and down he would be there, financially and emotionally for his daughter. That lasted until I asked him to quit drinking and getting high and TRY to be a good father. Suddenly, his phone calls stopped coming, and the last time he ever actually laid eyes on his own daughter was when she was five months old. The child support was pretty screwed up, too, see, he worked for the County and had "connections," so when the Court tried to serve him, the Sheriffs' Department had one creative excuse after another as to why they couldn't do so. Two years later, I got my first Child Support check. Since then, payments have been so sporadic it's pathetic, and he is currently about $40,000 in arrears. Fighting the Illinois Child Support system is an exhausting procedure, and for whatever reason, they tend to favor the non-custodial paernt. At least, in my situation. To make things even MORE difficult, he is now married and living in Florida with his new wife and stepson - a woman I know from our past who used to hold a crackpipe in one hand and her toddler son in the other. Oh, did I mention that this guy is 45 years old? 35 when Lexie was born? Not exactly an "irresponsible kid" type. He is SUPPOSEDLY a "man." Anyway, the whole child support issue isn't really my biggest problem.

My biggest problem is the fact that my daughter, for all practical purposes, doesn't have a dad. Initially, I used to try to make up for this fact by overcompensating. Lexie was a pretty spoiled child, I’ll admit, she always had the newest toys and cutest clothes, even when I really couldn’t afford it. My parents seemed to help out a lot in that department as well, especially since she was their first grandchild. As she got older, and became aware of the fact that her family was “different,” I would explain to her that although she did have a dad, he was sick, and couldn’t be there for her. I never said a bad word about him to her (although Lord knows I have been tempted) because I really believe doing so would do more harm than good. I didn’t want her to EVER think that his not being around was because of her, so I always was careful to say that he just couldn’t be a good dad, and that maybe someday he would get well and be able to be there for her. When she was really little, this was good enough, but as she got older, she wanted more information.

Gradually I told her that in fact, her father was sick because of drugs and alcohol, and I even told her about my checkered past (well, in VERY limited amounts, of course). I explained that although I was able to recover, he wasn’t. I told her how hard it is to stop doing drugs and using alcohol when you are so sick from it. I told her that I was sure he WANTED to stop, but just couldn’t. Surprisingly, she was very accepting of the whole shebang. She asked some questions, but decided that she was ok with it. And for a little while, that was the end of it.

Then about a year and a half ago, she started asking more questions. She wanted to know if he knew where to find her. I told her yes, since her grandparents (his parents) knew where she was (they had always been good about sending cards and gifts for birthdays and holidays), obviously he would know as well. She wanted to know if he was married. I told her yes, and that he also had a stepson. She asked if that meant she had a stepmother and stepbrother, and I said NO. That in order for them to be “step” anything to her, her father would have to be active in her life. (Plus I wouldn’t want that woman near my daughter, but I didn’t tell her that...) She wanted to know what he looked like, and if I had any pictures.

Now, HERE we ran into problems. You see, I do have ONE clear picture of him from her christening, but in it he looks a lot like Skeletor from the old “He-Man” cartoons. And I didn’t want to freak her out. (Remember – junkie alcoholic.) So I found two other pictures – one from FAR far away in which you couldn’t really see him, and one that showed him holding her – which only showed him from the chin down. She accused me of taking bad pictures, and asked if she could call her grandparents for better ones. I said ok and prayed I was doing the right thing, and that they had some less-scary pictures of their son.

Eventually, they mailed her two pictures of him that actually weren’t that bad (neither of them were close-ups): one of him in a cherry-picker (weird, since according to child support he WASN'T WORKING) and one of him lounging in a speedboat (ROUGH LIFE, ASSHOLE). First, she brought those pictures to school to show her friends her dad, then she scotch-taped them to her bedroom wall. It was shortly after that that I caught her crying in her room.

She couldn’t understand why he could be a dad to someone else’s kid, but not to her. Why he chose drugs over her. Why he lived so far away in Florida. Why he never called her. Why he never came to visit. Why he never loved her.

It broke my heart, because he didn’t deserve her tears. I held her and rocked her, and tried not to cry myself as I explained to her that he DID love her, he just felt like he couldn’t be a good dad right now. That he was too sick. That I couldn’t explain why he was married with a stepson in Florida, but that it had nothing to do with her. That in the meantime, she had her Uncle Bob and her Grandpa, and maybe it wasn’t exactly the same, but that they loved her just as much as a father would.

It was then that I sent off a scathing letter to the Loser, telling him how much he had missed in almost ten years. Telling him he would NEVER get this time back, and it made me sick that he just didn’t care. Telling him that he had a DAUGHTER, dammit, a daughter who was a wonderful person and who everyone loved, a daughter who was good at bowling, who struggled with school sometimes, who loved all animals… a daughter he knew NOTHING about. My fury poured out onto the paper – fury at him for hurting my Lexie so badly, for not being the father she deserved. To me, it was incomprehensible. I couldn’t understand myself how someone could live their life knowing they had a child out there and choosing to ignore that child. I sent the letter off to Florida, not exactly sure what result I was hoping for. My mother was not happy – she didn’t want him to be any part of her granddaughter’s life. But I explained to her that the bottom line was that he WAS her father, and if he ever made a choice to straighten up and try to do the right thing, I wouldn’t stop him. I may not like the man, hell, I HATED him, he was STILL her father. And she deserved the chance to know him.

A few weeks went by, and nothing. Then, the week before Christmas last year, Lexie received a package in the mail from the Loser. I handed it to her in silence, and let her take it into the bathroom and open it herself in private. When she came out, she handed it to me wordlessly, and I could see the tear tracks still on her cheeks. He had sent a generic Christmas card signed “Love, Loser (Dad).” He also sent a brief letter signed the same way, in which he said he thought maybe they could write each other letters and maybe get to know each other. And he sent a gold heart on a chain.

When I asked Lexie if she wanted me to help her write a letter back, she replied, “No. He ignored me for almost ten years, maybe I’ll ignore him for a while.” She didn’t want the chain either, so I put it away for the day that she does. Oh, and the pictures on her wall? She hung a poster of Usher over them.

To say that her attitude didn’t make me feel a little smug would be a lie, but I still was disappointed in Loser. Lexie didn’t respond to his letter, but he never wrote her again, either. He gave up just like that, instead of making a real effort to connect with his own daughter. And every once in a while he’ll send a few bucks to the Child Support department just to beat the system. The whole situation makes my blood boil, but then I take a step back and look at the big picture.

My daughter has ME, and she has her Uncle Bob, and her Grandma and Grandpa. She has a ton of family here who love her very much – all my uncles and aunts and cousins and cousins’ kids. Maybe someday I will find my Mr. Wonderful, and she will have a “real” dad. But if not, she’ll still be ok. And Loser will never know everything he missed.

Maybe we don’t have the conventional family, but Lexie and I have an unbreakable bond and unconditional love. And I know she still hurts sometimes over the dad issue, but I help her through that as much as I can. Maybe someday as an adult she will confront Loser, and have her closure, but in the meantime (and forever) I’ll be here for whatever she needs.