The other day I was playing with my daughter Emma and her friend Amelia. The girls were taking turns sitting on my lap, but Emma got a bit jealous and told Amelia that she didn’t want her to sit on my lap and then walked off. Amelia, after Emma walked off slapped my hand, jumped off my lap and ran off crying to Jane, her mom. Amelia was completely broken and just crying to her mom and saying “mom, I miss my daddy. I want a daddy to cuddle up to. I want my daddy so that I can have a daddy to sit on.” You see, Amelia’s dad walked out of then when she was 3 and now he is back in England while they are here doing a school.
I sat there on the grass with my friend Jim speechless. All we could do was watch this beautiful little 5 year old broken and collapsed in her moms arms sobbing for her daddy. This was on Wednesday, and today I spent some time talking with Jane. Wednesday was the first time since being here, 7 weeks, that Amelia has been like this over her dad. Since Wednesday she has been talking about him and her feelings of sadness that he is not here. She has also written and talked to him on the phone. Later on that night Jane and Amelia came over and hung out with us. Amy and Jane talked and I played with the kids. Kids are so resilient and strong.
The injustice here is that children all over the world are growing up without a father, or father figure in their lives. Now there are different circumstances for all divorced families, but in general I feel that kids need a healthy, strong, loving father in their lives. It breaks my heart and brings me back to the desire I have had for as long as I can remember for kids to have good families. This is why I volunteered at the women and children’s center in Seattle and why I am drawn to kids who don’t have dads in their lives.
What do you do about this story? How does it make you feel? What do you say? I am not sure, but it is very real and I pray that I can do something.
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