The Bond: Three Young Men Learn to Forgive and Reconnect With Their Fathers

by Sampson Davis

  Yet I’ve had advantages that my father didn’t have. And George and Sam can say the same, now that we’ve learned more than we ever knew about our fathers’ lives. For instance, both my father and George’s father went to college. Yet they didn’t graduate. Both struggled with the tremendous adjustment of fitting in. What some might dismiss as a failure, I can admire.

  In fact, I think their attempts were heroic. Both were bowled over by the pressures of college and the unfamiliarity of their new environment. You’ve got to give them credit for being pioneers and having the guts to attempt something they hadn’t seen modeled in their own families. Their college attempts shouldn’t be viewed as failures but as successes, given the era.

  We, on the other hand, had the support of a Carla Dickson, which is kind of like having a prizefighter in your corner. She helped George, Sam, and me tough it out, and taught us to envision ourselves as doctors. From helping us piece together a financial strategy to pay for college to monitoring our grades, she did it all. My father didn’t have that kind of support. When he set foot on Assumption College’s campus in the 1970s, I know he felt utterly alone. He and George’s dad can be compared to the first wave of an army battalion that sweeps in and paves the way for the troops to come. It had to be extraordinarily hard for them. After all, we found it difficult twenty years later. Just knowing that he tried to break through, to make it to college, makes me appreciate my blessings and respect him more.

  I know many people who are so disappointed in the men who fathered them that they dismiss them as losers and have little contact with them. But fathers are human. Anyone who sets out to find out more about his absentee father’s life, as we did, will probably uncover startling similarities. It can be a difficult but healthy exercise. Knowing this missing information can give you hope and maybe even allow you to forgive.

  THE TIMING OF THIS project turned out to be crucial. I never dreamed that each of our fathers would develop serious illnesses during the time it took to bring this book to publication. Doctors diagnosed George’s father with prostate cancer in the summer of 2006. He is undergoing treatment and his prognosis is good. However, Sampson’s father’s health declined irreversibly, and sadly, in May of 2007, he passed away. And my own father, to my surprise, suffered a tremendous setback just when it seemed he had conquered all his demons. It started in the spring of 2006, when Dad’s kidneys failed. He was hospitalized for several weeks and had to go on dialysis, which really depressed him. Dad struggled to do his work for his master’s degree from his hospital bed. “I’ve got to get my reports in,” he told me.

  Complications followed swiftly. Early one morning, Dad went into cardiac arrest and his heart stopped. He was essentially dead for ten minutes, until the doctors resuscitated him. The episode left him with brain damage, and he lay in a coma for several weeks. My relatives and I began considering our alternatives. It was a painful discussion for all of us. We went home that night and prayed.

  The next morning, he opened his eyes.

  But those ten minutes he spent without oxygen have had a heartbreaking effect. Dad doesn’t speak much now, and he can’t walk. He’ll probably never recover completely. His speedy progress toward his master’s degree, his dreams of constructing a retirement home in the South, have all been derailed, probably permanently.

  The changes in his life have been difficult to witness.

  Over the past ten years, I’ve grown so used to seeing my father boldly set his goals and meet them. I had visions of him going on tour with us to promote this book. I couldn’t wait to show him off and give him a taste of how fame feels. He’s earned it.

  I’ve been resilient through so many hardships in my life, but I’ve come up against the one thing that could blow me backward and knock me off my feet. I used to juggle a thousand things and prided myself on being able to handle everything gracefully. Not anymore. I used to think that anything I set my mind to, I could do. All my life, I’ve believed that my determination has defined my destiny. It helped propel me to college, medical school, and beyond. But Dad’s health problems have shaken me. I didn’t foresee them. It seems so unfair, when he so deserves a reward, to deprive him of it. It’s been hard for me to accept.

  I’ve learned so much from my father in the decade since he got clean. Probably the biggest lesson he’s taught me is that it’s a man’s job to take care of his family. I always respected family, but watching him in action brought that point home for me.

  During that time, Dad made it a priority to take care of his kids and his mother. He considered it his job to go to his mom’s house to fix something that was broken. He’d trudge over there in all weather to fix the lights or repair this or that. When I finally bought myself a place to live, I didn’t even have to ask Dad for help. After he helped me move my stuff in, he started making plans to help me paint it: “I’ll block my schedule out for a couple of days. It won’t take long for you and me to get this place together,” he told me.

  He never came out and said it, but I saw just from watching him that these are the kinds of things that a real man does to support his family. It gave him joy to slip into the role of protector. He sent me the unspoken message that, as a man, people need to be able to count on you.

  Kids like me grow up self-sufficient, picking up cues on how to behave from our environment. Our fathers so often aren’t there. Eventually their absence begins to define our personalities, making us distrustful and defensive. But when Dad reappeared in my life for good, he showed me how great it feels to be able to turn to someone for unconditional support.

  Yes, I was born into a large loving family, the Hunts, but my dad taught me a lesson that my maternal side didn’t. Perhaps they couldn’t. Maybe this was something I just needed to learn from a man. Watching him showed me that the true measure of manhood can be found in just being a person your family can rely on, no matter what.

  Of course, the maternal side of my family always showed me love, and Ma believed in personal responsibility. But I never put it all together and saw the sheer joy that could come from being a man who fulfills his responsibilities to his family until I saw my father doing it.

  That changed me. I used to be so caught up in my own life, in becoming a success, that I wouldn’t really put myself out for anybody.

  Throughout my life, I’ve always felt blessed whenever I basked in my father’s love. He never withheld it, even when he struggled against drugs. He made it clear that he genuinely cared for his children. Because of that, I readily forgave Dad every time he relapsed. I just followed his fatherly advice: I took his negative experiences and tried to pull something positive out of them.

  He didn’t lose his capacity to love, despite the absence of loving men in his own life. He didn’t fall victim to the emotionless style that defines so many men we grew up knowing. For men who are conditioned to be providers but end up living paycheck to paycheck, it’s easy to start hating the very idea of feelings and emotions. They’re only associated with dreams that didn’t come true, with things you never accomplished. Eventually we let society strip us of the vital emotions that cause us to hug a child, to wipe the tears, to offer unconditional support.

  Realizing how strong is the impulse for men to pull away from emotions and abandon children, I’m only now grasping how extraordinary my father truly is. He isn’t just a good man, I’ve come to understand. He’s a great man.

  He absolutely refused to bow down to the trend of fatherlessness that swept through his own life.

  Countless men who let society strip them of their fatherly instincts realize the damage that’s been done only when it’s too late.

  It’s so common for fathers to finally voice their regrets to their children after the kids are grown. Many men feel as if they blew it. They missed their chance to be a father, so why try to reconcile once their children are grown? Saddest of all are the men who aren’t proud of their lives and feel a need, as their health wanes, to apologize.

  Why woul
d you want to wait until you’re dying to say you’re sorry? My dad showed me that the most meaningful way to apologize is through action. Waiting until you’re on your deathbed is too late for anyone to get anything out of the relationship.

  Yes, my father missed part of my journey; he wasn’t there to tuck us in when we were kids. But fatherhood is a lifelong experience. I recognize now in retrospect that that’s what those late-night phone calls really were all about. Decades later, he had figured out a way to tuck us in.

  And it wasn’t too late. I had waited a long time to know the feeling of well-being that comes from having a daddy check on you before bedtime. My dad’s life and my life are richer now that he has asserted his rightful place in my life.

  So many men are conditioned to believe that a father’s main job is to provide for his children. I think one reason fatherlessness is so rampant in poor communities is because low-income men feel that they can’t be the provider. And if that’s all that a father is supposed to do, well then, he can’t perform that task.

  Luckily, my father didn’t view himself as merely a source of money, because that would have made him feel like a complete failure. We would have been cheated of any connection, because Dad had no stability, no steady job, no reliable income to share with me.

  But a father is so much more than a provider. Researchers recently have begun studying something called “father closeness” and realizing its importance in a child’s healthy development. One study found that the closer a child’s bond is with a father, the more likely the child will be to avoid cigarettes, alcohol, and hard drugs. Another study showed that girls whose fathers give them positive reinforcement tend to display less antisocial behavior.

  I wish every child could know the joy of being loved by a father, the way I have known it.

  Not long ago, a radio talk show host asked if the three of us had good relationships with our fathers. George and Sam answered no. But I firmly answered yes.

  You must admit, that’s an ironic response considering that I’m the only one of us whose parents never married. Sam bears his father’s last name. So does George. Of the three of us, I’m the only one who grew up without his father’s stamp on him. Yet I’m the only one who has a loving bond with his father.

  My father has given me something my friends envy, something permanent that didn’t cost anything. He delivered it despite a drug addiction. Without ever giving my mother a wedding ring. Without any of the outward trappings of a traditional relationship.

  Circumstances prevented me from knowing the most basic facts about my father. I didn’t even realize Dad’s name was the same as his father’s and grandfather’s until we researched this book. Yet in the end, none of that mattered.

  What mattered most were the nightly phone calls. The solemn “Don’t do what I did” discussions after my arrest. The joyful rituals we carved out late in life. The simple assurance that if I needed his attention and his love, all I had to do was call.

  Those were all I needed to feel like I belonged to him.

  Chapter 4

  RAMECK

  Forgiveness

  FOR FAR TOO MANY kids who grow up without a father, that void is filled with insecurity and hostility. These feelings are a dangerous combination that eats away at their souls and makes them vulnerable to destructive forces around them. As they grow to adulthood, feelings of rejection and anger simmer and boil over into their relationships at home and at work. As we have shown, fatherlessness is an unhealthy but sadly all-too-common cycle. Fathers who abandon their children often were abandoned themselves.

  One powerful step toward ending this cycle is through forgiveness. Forgiving the father who abandoned you, the wrongs done to you, may seem like the last thing you would ever want to do, but take it from a doctor, it can be a powerful medicine for healing. You will never forget how your father’s absence hurt you, but you can begin to heal those old wounds. In this chapter, we introduce you to a friend who chose to forgive her father, despite the legacy of pain he left behind. As you will see, forgiving is not about excusing their actions. Forgiveness is about empowering you to grow beyond the pain and loss.

  MONICA

  Earlier, we told you about Monica, the mother of Kenny, the stand-out kid we’ve all but adopted. Monica thanks us for every interaction, e-mail, and invitation that we extend to her son, who is now a teenager. As a single parent, Monica says she needs all the backup she can get.

  Her manageable life as a suburban wife and mother vanished on the day in 1998 she delivered her baby daughter, Kenny’s little sister, Kennedy.

  “What’s the matter?” Monica asked anxiously during her C-section, when the birthing room fell strangely silent. Since her face was hidden behind a surgical drape, Monica couldn’t see the baby. But she could tell something was wrong from the way her husband dropped his head. “It’s going to be okay,” he assured her, although he didn’t make eye contact.

  When she caught her first glimpse of the baby, she could see Kennedy had obvious medical problems. Huge moles masked her pretty face. Doctors were slow to diagnose Kennedy with a rare disease called epidermal nevus syndrome, nevus being a medical term for mole. Kennedy, now eight, has the worst form of the disease and will never walk or talk.

  When Monica’s marriage broke up not long after Kennedy’s birth, Monica discovered her inner strength. It was a first for her. She had never felt particularly powerful before, during all the twists and turns her life had taken since childhood.

  Monica grew up in Virginia, and when she started school, she noticed that the mothers of her classmates looked much younger than her own mom, a sweet-faced but stern disciplinarian. Monica’s world changed instantly when, at age seven, Monica asked her mother an innocent question: “Ma, why’re you so old?”

  “Because I’m not your mother. I’m your grandmother,” came her quiet and unflinching answer. She seemed as if she knew the question would come someday.

  Her grandmother showed her a picture that Monica had long seen in her grandmother’s bedroom. “This is my daughter. Your mother is my little girl,” her grandmother said, as gently as she could. Monica was shocked—she had always thought that she was the little girl holding a candy apple in the framed picture. It looked just like her.

  That day, Monica learned that after her actual mother had given birth to her in high school, her grandparents stepped in to raise her. And that wasn’t all the news: Her parents had gone on to get married and have three more daughters. The rest of Monica’s nuclear family was intact and living in New York City. She had never met them.

  Monica’s grandmother picked up the phone and dialed her daughter, while Monica leaned on her grandmother’s knee. It seemed unreal when her grandmother passed her the phone, and Monica heard the voice of her real mother saying, “How are you doing?” That summer, she went to meet her parents and sisters, and everyone agreed that Monica should stay in New York. Like the dutiful person she was raised to be, Monica made the whirlwind mental adjustment to her new family. That fall, she started a new school. It felt as if her identity suddenly had been switched.

  But the reunion had its challenges. Her father had an angry side, and she witnessed him beating her mother many times. His temper scared Monica, whose grandparents never raised their voices.

  She didn’t know what to do about the violence that often jolted her household. At first, she had worshipped her dad. She used to sit on the edge of the bathtub when he shaved, marveling over what a good-looking man he was. But it tied her emotions in knots to see him abuse her mother.

  Monica didn’t know that her mother was quietly piecing together a plan to get herself and her children to a safer, healthier place.

  One day, when Monica was thirteen, her mother put that plan into action. As soon as her father left for work, her mom stripped off her robe. To Monica’s surprise, her mother was fully dressed underneath. Beckoning to the hall closet, where the family’s suitcases were stacked and fully packed, Monica’s mot
her told them to grab their belongings and leave quickly. They caught a cab to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City, and took a Greyhound bus to Virginia. Monica ended up where she had begun, in her grandmother’s house, but this time she had her mother and three sisters, too.

  During the next years, Monica had little contact with her father. In fact, she had little contact with any men. As Monica matured, her grandmother and mother wanted to protect her, so they didn’t allow her to date anyone except under the strictest of rules.

  As a result, Monica said, she married the first guy who expressed an interest in her once she got to college. But after Kennedy came along, the rocky marriage came completely undone. Monica had just started steeling herself to survive as a single mom when, out of nowhere, a shoulder appeared for her to lean on. Her father arrived for a holiday visit, having heard the news about his granddaughter.

  He wanted to offer Monica his support. He wanted to meet his grandchildren. Still, he never imagined how profoundly disabled little Kennedy would turn out to be. Monica took him to the hospital on Thanksgiving Day to meet her. After he saw Kennedy’s disfigured face, her dad quietly fled to the cafeteria to cry.

  On the drive home, he turned to her with something serious in his heart. “I don’t want you to feel bad, or to ever think it was something you did that made your daughter turn out like that,” he said. “I could not have wished for a better daughter than you. You always listened to us, you did everything we asked. Sometimes things happen and you don’t understand it,” he added. “Maybe it’s because of something I did, and now you have to pay for it,” he said soberly.

  That day changed everything for both of them. Monica saw a compassionate side of her father, and needing support desperately, she opened up and welcomed it. From then on, they talked frequently. She refused to excuse the battering episodes, but she could forgive. She recognized the stresses he had faced, as a young uneducated man who fathered six children by age twenty-seven, and she understood that he knew no better than to take them out on his wife.