My Dad

This shot was taken of my Dad in the final years of his life. He is wearing that lovely goofy smile of his and this photo was taken on a return visit to Indonesia where he and my Mum lived with my older brother and sister between 1946 and 1949 some time in the mid 1980s.

The photo fell out of my Al Anon Hope For Today reader on Tuesday morning… when I was reading the April 17 reading on emotionally unavailable parents.. I need to remember though when I spent those three months pinned to a hospital bed in 1979 and the doctor would not tell me if I would be able to attend my school formal (never got to as my leg did not heal in time) and was often cool and disengaged, my Dad actually wrote to him and asked him to treat me more softly.. Mum only revealed this to me many many years later after my father died..

I loved my Dad.. I longed for my Dad’s attention, he often felt remote to me, he went through so much I will never know.. I do miss him.. I miss him a lot.. the wound of my longing for him may always be with me which is why now I ask him from spirit to stay close to me and try to understand how he also left his family behind and lost his father at the age of 12. , I no longer want to be pushing men away or lashing out when they are not available, simply because it hard for them to see the little girl in me who always longed for so much more from her Dad . Considering his own childhood he gave me the best he could even if it was not enough. ❤