THE NIGHT I HAD DINNER WITH MY DAD
I had dinner with my Dad recently. He didn’t sit at the same table as my husband and I. He sat by himself at the little table near the door.
His eyes sparkled as he ate. He was kind to the wait staff. I watched him keenly.
When he ate, he reminded me of myself. He chewed deliberately, you could tell he was thinking of the flavours, savouring every bite. In between bites, he’d sit back in his chair and watch the fellow diners.
I could tell he was looking at the other people in the restaurant and making up stories about them, just like I do.
He’d rub his nose with the side of his hand, just like me. And then he’d stop to look out into the darkness. Lost in his thoughts. I do that too. And when the waitress made a joke, he laughed, just like me.
I wondered what brought him to the restaurant? I wondered why he dined alone? Did he come here for work? Was he meant to be meeting someone? Was he happy? He looked happy. He looked content in his own company, like me. A man not afraid to be in his own space.
I did not ask him to dine with us, because although I’d convinced myself at that moment he was my dad, I knew he was not.
I don’t know my father. I will never know who he is.
But it doesn’t stop me searching for him in other ways. I see “him” at the weirdest times. I watch “him” and imagine his backstory. There’s always a moment in my imaginings that he looks up and smiles.
There’s always a moment he comes over to me and tells me he’s been searching for me and he’s so happy to have finally found me. We hug and I feel his breathe on my neck. I smell him. I see his features up close; the wrinkles on his forehead, the stubble on his cheeks. Pieces of a puzzle finally fit together.
He always tells me he is proud of me and loves me. I take those moments of pure joy and then lock them away in my heart.
I lock them away with the other times that I see my “sisters” and “brothers”. I see them too, people who look like me. People with features that I can not immediately place with my gorgeous Mum. People I imagine could be related to me. I experience these moments at the most unlikely times – buying a drink from a bar, at the supermarket, drinking a coffee at the markets, on the tram. The shape of someone’s nose, their side profile, the way they speak – all things which alert me to their likeness to me.
Do we share the same father? It’s possible, but I’ll never know. Family walking all around me, who I’ll never meet.
It’s for this reason I can not watch TV shows when families are reunited, as that will never be my reality. I’d rather quietly imagine my own “reunions”. It works best for me that way. They make me happy. I am happy.
I had dinner with my Dad the other night.
Do you make up stories in your head too?
*Bianca was raised by her mother and has never known who her father was. She hasn’t let her define her, but wonders if he laughs like her.
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*Bianca Wordley is an Adelaide-based blogger and writer who is the publisher of bigwords. She has worked for The Advertiser, The Sunday Mail, Independent Weekly, The Times, Australian Associated Press, Adelaide Hills Magazine and read the news for ABC Radio. You can find her on Twitter: @bigwordsblog.
16 Responses to this article
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Mrs Woog October 18, 2012
Just an amazing story Bianca. Goosebumps a plenty here xx
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bigwords October 18, 2012
Thanks gorgeous x
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Jenny October 18, 2012
A lovely story, but also very sad. It must be so lonely somewhere deep inside to never know who a parent was, to always miss out on feeling that connection. Will your mother not tell you, for reasons of her own? Maybe out of consideration for him, or you?
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bigwords October 18, 2012
Yes, sad at times, but luckily not lonely at all. I have an amazing mother, husband and three beautiful girls who fill my life with joy. xx
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Jenny October 18, 2012
I am so glad to hear that!
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susan October 18, 2012
My 10yo son has a big dad-shaped hole too and family reunion tv shows just make him cry which simply tears me in two.
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bigwords October 18, 2012
But he has you, for which he is very lucky x
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Lou October 18, 2012
Wow Bianca. Your story has a special power for me as I also do not know who my father is. I was adopted at 5 days old and raised by wonderful, gorgeous parents. I found my maternal birth family but sadly my birth mother had passed away. She never told her family who my father was. So like you I wonder is he out there. Does he even know I exist? Like you I don’t let this define me as I have a very strong sense of who I am. And in answer Jenny to your question no there isn’t a deep loneliness inside. I know people who feel no connection to their dysfunctional biological families and who are much lonelier than me. My children, husband, extended family and many friends keep my life crowded with love.
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bigwords October 18, 2012
Writing this has made me realise that I am connected to so many people who share a similar story to me. I love that your life is “crowded with love”. Mine is also xx
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sue bell October 18, 2012
I have my birth certificate and know why my mother got an amazingly fast divorce from my birth father. I adored my step father, changed my last name to his as he could not adopt me but wanted to. I know my birth father was a famous cat burglar but he did something dreadful, even my mother doesn’t know what it was. But 60 odd years later I still have that curiosity, do I have half siblings, what was he like in later life. I know I got my good singing voice from him. I once rang every person in the Sydney phone directory with his last name.
My big problem is sheer curiosity. -
Buttercup October 18, 2012
I lost my kind, lovely, fun dad thirty years ago and this bought me to tears. Thankyou
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The Huntress October 18, 2012
Being adopted I used to spend more time wondering who I was, rather than my birth parents. Weird, I know, but I used to wonder who I looked like, if we shared character traits or interests or if they remembered me. I used to imagine what it was like for my birth mother to leave me in the hospital and what the nurses and midwives would have done for the baby that wasn’t going home with their mum (adoption wasn’t so common by the time I was given up). I used to imagine how the men who were my birth father and my maternal grandfather blocked out my existence and particularly how did my maternal grandfather treat my birth mother when she went home without her baby as he instucted her to.
Maybe it would seem I do make up stories.
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Joni October 18, 2012
The always wondering would be so hard…thanks for sharing your stories.
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Dixie October 19, 2012
Thank you Bianca … I think deep down somewhere from talks with you’re Mum I knew that you had no connection with your Dad. But thank you for sharing ,now I have to eat my lunch feeling quite emotional …You and your Mum are both amazing women … Good breeding I say …
