Daddy or Chips?

Daddy or Chips?

It was Father’s Day today and I would have liked to send you a card but I have never met you, I don’t know where you live, if you are still alive, and I don’t even know if I would like you.

Over the years I have often thought about you, not always in a nice way either. I resent that you never gave me your name and I only found that out when I was getting married. However,as a child I used to fantasize about you. You were never just a regular bloke. Sometimes I would tell people you were a murderer and you were locked up. Other times I would tell people you were some kind of prince, never anything ordinary like a joiner or a plumber!

You lived in my imagination for such a long time. It was the only way I could get to know you but of course I didn’t really get to know you. How could I? Why should I? You probably don’t even know I exist. You probably wouldn’t care if you did. But I care. I wish I didn’t. I wish I could be like you never giving a thought…but I do…give a thought…

I wonder what you look like, I wonder what you speak like, I wonder if you are happy. Why do I worry about these things? Why do I care? You have never been part of my life as a presence but, nevertheless, you are part of me. I carry your genes but which ones are they? I look in the mirror and I think do I look like you? I hear my voice and I think do I sound like you? My character traits, are they yours? It’s not nice to be half a person, well, that is how I see myself. Never knowing what parts of me I owe to you.

Casually conceived and not given a moment’s thought since, or, did you know but not care enough to acknowledge me. I was born into a time when there was a stigma attached to being a bastard! But at least I am a bastard by accident of birth. Are you a bastard but a self made man? All these questions run round in my head but with no answers. When I was young I was called a bastard. Today I would, perhaps, be called a love child but that is not an accurate description because there was no love in your liaison with my mother. Men are encouraged to sow their wild oats but I and others like me are your legacy.

If I did know that you were still alive and I knew where you lived and I sent you a Father’s Day card what would it say, I wonder? Would it say, 'Daddy or chips?'

I suspect the answer to that question might be chips because I am angry, I am resentful, I cannot deny it. However, the most prominent feeling is one of feeling cheated. Cheated because two people were needed to conceive me but it took just one person to deny me. So, yes, I am all of those things but still I hanker after the Father I never had.

So, Father’s Day brings it all back! The anger, the resentment, the feeling cheated but also, the longing, the desire to know you, the need to know me. That insistent, painful, need to know who I am, my true identity! Yes, on Father’s Day, you are resurrected and reincarnated in my imagination. How sad is that? Today you might have received a card which said…

End