When A Father Fails

One day I sat reminiscing over a half century of living and I came to the conclusion that the biggest blurb on my earthly resume was my failure as a father. A failure that was magnified when I looked at my youngest son Ian telling me “I Love You” as our visit was now over. We were separated by the fiberglass partition of the cinderblock visiting box he sat in as an inmate in Northern State Prison in Newark NJ. When I turned away it hit me fully the results of my failure as a father. How did it get to this point? What in the world was going on? Why was my seed behind this fiberglass partition and concrete wall? Look at me I am a pastor, husband, street activist and yet while trying to care and save so many other’s my own seed was being neglected. Was this a sacrifice that I had undertaken or in reality was it just plan neglect? This encounter forced me to sit down and process the life style I had lived before the present position I found myself in. The reality of the numerous commitments I had entered into and broken and the memories of numerous females whom I encountered along the way. Whose lives were radically changed when our encounter was finished, the multiple times I walked the aisles of “Holy Matrimony” with a promise of “Till death do we part”. Forced to remember a personal journey experiencing multiple addictions, where many times I was out of control and headed towards self destruction. How I went from a person with so much promise and potential to one who is now playing catch up while attempting to heal a body after years of abuse. I submit this writing not to hurt those I have encountered but to strengthen those who are living a life similar to mine. You be the judge because to measure myself by myself would be self serving and most likely bias, so I submit my world to yours in order that some “Failed Father will change direction while he still has the chance”.