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Once upon a time a man met a woman. The woman had many problems, but the man had so many more. She worked, he didn’t. He did many drugs, and drank quite a lot. Yet she loved him, and supposedly he her. They showed their love in every way a couple could, and nine months later, a gift was born. A child, a girl. The woman changed her whole life for that child, her gift, her precious one and only. The man did not. He continued to lie to the woman, saying he was borrowing money for one thing, but spending it for another. The woman got fed up with the man; she wanted a family, a good family that could grow into something beautiful. Six months into the life of the shared child, she had to ask him something important. She needed to know one thing. If he was willing to end that life of bad habits and lying, and if he was ready to have a family. If he wasn’t, then the woman and the child were going to leave. He said he wasn’t. And they left.
As the child grew up, she noticed other families, how they had a mommy, and a daddy. She started asking questions. Asking where her daddy was. It was hard on the woman, but she knew it was better to tell the truth rather than to lie to her. She did, she told her that she gave daddy a choice, between the life he had, and the life he could have. She told him the choice he made. For years she didn’t know what to think about it, she was confused. She wondered why he left, there had to be more to the story, wasn’t here? She wondered, what life would be like if he was there…if he loved her…but then though, if he did, he would be there…wouldn’t he? She would ask her mother this every now and then. Or ask about him. She found out how they meet, that he had a brother, that he was a good dancer and a good cook, and that he wanted to be a dentist. She had three pictures of him. She lost two, and it hurt each time. As she grew, the feeling of abandonment and depression grew. Every year on the 20th of June, she used to make a card, writing a small note. Telling her father that it was okay, that she still loved him, and that she would be waiting for him to come back. He was Hispanic, so she drew a piñata and sombrero on the cards, to make him smile. She never sent them, because she didn’t know where he lived. But it was nice, to be able to make a card with the rest of the children in her class.
Years of life continued. She grew to accept that he was gone, and that there was hardly a chance that she would ever meet him. She still had hope though; she told herself that she would find him. Though many asked her what she would do, if she did, and didn’t like what she saw. She told them the same thing. She just wanted him to know his daughter. He has a son, and the mother of the son told him, that he couldn’t see the boy. The girl wanted to make sure her father knew, that he was welcomed in her life. That there wasn’t anything holding him back from seeing her. Again years continued, and seventeen years later, the girl still cries on father’s day. She no longer feels as if it were her fault he left. No, she’s spoken with many people about that, and she’s spoken to herself about it too. Still, she misses him more than anything.
Three years ago, father’s day, she was at her families church, she told herself that she wouldn’t cry like the last year and the year before that. The sermon started, and as she expected, it was about the importance of fathers. She bit her lip, trying to force herself to sit and listen, to listen to what the pastor was saying and believe him. He started to talk about the importance a father was in a young girl’s life. The girl couldn’t handle it after that, she went into the room where mothers went with their children when they cry and the parents could still hear the sermon. She rocked back and forth in the room’s rocking chair, telling herself over and over again that it wasn’t her fault, that it wasn’t her fault, that it wasn’t her fault. Only, the voices inside her head, voices that are inside everyone’s head, continued to tell her, that it was. She cried. She cried for the whole sermon. Her mother found her and comforted her, asking her why she didn’t tell her what was going on, so she could take the girl home. She said she wanted to be strong.
One year ago, the girl had forgotten all about father’s day, the months before had been good ones, happy ones. Why would she remember? She never calibrated the day. It wasn’t important to her any more. She had a dream. The dream started out strange, she was playing a game with others, a strange game with spiked mallets and body armor…the scene changed. Everyone was looking around and finding people that they knew. They were talking to loved one’s that had passed away…the girl looked frantically around the room for someone she knew. No one. She couldn’t find anyone. She walked up to a little boy, talking to his father who had passed away. It hurt her to watch, so she moved and walked to a part of the wall that was empty of others. A woman walked up to her and asked her what was wrong. The girl was crying, looking up she told the woman that there wasn’t anyone here for her. The woman smiled as a door opened, filling the room with more light. She said to look in there. Quickly the girl stood up and looked inside. There was a pool, why there was a pool she’ll never know. She looked around; people were walking around the room. She saw her mother there, talking to her great uncle who had passed when she was a little girl. She knew it was him because he wore the same sweater and glasses as a picture that was on the mother’s night stand. She looked around again, her eyes grew large as a man started to walk up to her, he wore a yellow jump suit, like the one in the only picture she had left…she ran up to him…only to find out it wasn’t him. That hurt too. She suddenly had to go to the bathroom. She walked to where she felt her uncle lived. As she walked, she passed by the house next to it. It smelt like beans, good beans and filled with lively music. She looked inside the room, and caught a glimpse of someone, but she had to go to the bathroom, badly. So, she did. She heard her uncle and mother coming back, so she finished and walked out.
When she was outside, her mother was talking to a man from the house next door. Her mother moved aside, and told her, that the man was her father. Of cores it was. It was him. She knew it as soon as she got a good look at him. His hair was curly, and he wore the gray sweater that was in one of the pictures that she had lost when she was a child. He had a smile on his face, and his arms out wide for her to be held by him in a warm embrace. Tears ran down the girls face as she started to walk forward. She reached inches of him, her arms almost around him, and his almost around her.
She woke up. Tears on her face. It wasn’t fair! She was so close to hugging her father for the first time. It was so real. She woke up. For half an hour she lay in her bed and cry before she could even get up, to use the bathroom. She looked on her calendar, and saw what day it was. Her mother had made breakfast, she couldn’t eat. She told her mother about her dream, trying to hold back tears but they betrayed her. Falling down her face despite of her. She stayed home from church that day too.

I’m not telling this to you, to try and attack you. No, just the opposite of this. I’m telling this to you, because I…I need you to know how much pain Father’s Day can be for some children. I know I am not the only one who’s ever had parent problems like this. I know I’m not the only one who’s cried each year over a parent. I don’t you know, I know your daughter though. And I know the pain that can only be given by a Father when they leave. I have never known my father. All I know is what I pretend. I pretend that I get things from him now and then. I pretend because it helps to blind side the pain. I don’t know you; I don’t know your past. All I can tell you if from what I’ve experienced. What I’ve felt. From what I’ve been told. Your daughter feels abandoned and disowned. I’ve had to go though almost eighteen years of feeling this pain and then some. Trying to spend father’s day, even with my grandfather, hurts more than I show to my family. It doesn’t feel right to spend a day honoring someone, when their not your father. It just doesn’t feel right, it feels forced, and it only adds onto the pain.
This year, I’m spending my June 20th, celebrating an accomplishment twelve years in the making. I’m graduating high school. Something that I can only do once in my life. I can cry over Father’s Day every year. I can’t cry over graduating high school more than once. Father’s day is once a year. This isn’t. I’m not here to tell you how to raise your child, no, that would be rude. I’m just helping [ensert hidden name here], I’m just helping you understand, why celebrating Fathers Day, can be so damaging for someone like me, or someone like her.


I have this book, that each time I read it, it fills me with disappointment, because only the first chapter is filled. I love this book with all my heart, even though it is a complete mystery to me, not knowing what was supposed to happen next, before and after, but also knowing that I’ll probably never find out. At times I lose my book and forget all about it, logging it into the back of my memories, but on special days I find my book, bringing it back into my main parts f my memory, then I find a quiet room. I cry. Holding this book near and dear to my dear and knowing that I’ve missed my book tremendously. This book that I have has a title, that title is Hillario Garcia, my father. My father who has probably lost his book, and not caring enough to find it, and even try to read it.

I wrote that in the 8th grade. And to this day, it is still true in its words.