The above picture is of my Father and me, it was taken in my Grandparents kitchen in Toronto, I never knew him. His name is Robert Earnest Anderson, I am not positive about the spelling of his middle name, that is the way it is spelled in my baby book which is in my Mothers handwriting. Even to my furthest recall I do not have any memories of him, all I knew of him growing up was what my Mother (who I love very much) told me, she did not speak well of him. I do not want to get into what she told me but it wasn’t good, but at this point the things said that I did not question, I now don’t believe at all. The things I was told about him at a young age that have been repeated throughout the years caused me to have bad feelings toward a man I never met. I remember being about 12 and I had a record with a song on it called “Boy named Sue” by Johnny Cash, when I listened to that song it made me think of me and him, I was Sue. My parents divorced when I was about 2 as far as I know, my Mother had custody of me and told me that he did not want to see me. Having no memories of him, us doing anything together or even a single phone call with him, I had no real understanding of who he was at all. I did not know that the man in the picture above was him until a couple years ago, when I would look in my photo album and see that picture I looked at it not knowing that is my Father. To say I was carrying a grudge towards him would be overstating it, but for a little while in my early youth I did have some anger towards him, but to be blunt I did understand that I had no mental concept of him at all to the point I didn’t know him to see him so to speak, so after around my mid teens I did not wonder about him much at all, his absence was normal, to not have a dad was normal for me but the negative view was something I did not question until my 30’s.
And so it is now April 11 2023, so much has happened since that picture was taken, I have lived my life to a point that by my guess I am double his age when that picture was taken. And I do understand how important the words “I don’t know” are. It can be tough to think and say that, to acknowledge that even to myself at times. But it is a very powerful thing to do, and I consider the weakness in position or decision making in not acknowledging that. It is a far better place to drop a belief that is unproven or not verified and restart a situation or decision making with “I don’t know” than to continue on just accepting for example, my beliefs of my Father that were based on nothing more than what my Mother told me. The difference between “known of” and “known” is something that is not always where the attention goes, seeing a person or situation that way (there is a video posted on this blog previously that beautifully discusses that, it’s The most important Lesson).
I do not know if my Father still lives, or how I would contact him or my family on my Father’s side. My Mother is my only relative in my life, my only other living relative on my Mother’s side of my family is my Aunt Catherine who I have not seen or spoken to for a very long time. I hope to someday see or speak to her again and would very much like to meet my family on my Father’s side, I understand I have at least one Brother and Sister and probably other family members to meet.
Crossroads come and go and then…crossroads come and go and then…
And so then we do our best with what we have and what we know, everyone does don’t they? But yet that isn’t always enough, my ignorance of my ignorance created or at least allowed a foundation for an opinion of a man that effected my choices in regards to something that I don’t know what could have been if I had viewed him differently, and that man was my Father. I could continue on here about regret, ponder what are possibilities, reflect on myself and the places I was at, or question my priorities perhaps but I will bring this post to an end by acknowledging, Robert Earnest Anderson I never knew you but I very much wish I had…regardless of anything what I will think of towards you from now on is something I just learned today…”BRIGHT.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert