The Final Call

Forgiving our fathers; atoning with our fathers

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“I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note—torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.” ~Henry Ward Beecher

“Henry James once defined life as that predicament which precedes death, and certainly nobody owes you a debt of honor or gratitude for getting him into that predicament. But a child does owe his father a debt, if Dad, having gotten him into this peck of trouble, takes off his coat and buckles down to the job of showing his son how best to crash through it.”  ~Clarence Budington Kelland

My father Jesse Carraway Photo: Valerie Carrraway

For a majority of women, as little girls growing up our fathers are our world. We relish the fact that people call us daddy’s little girls. We love the exclusivity of going to Daddy and Me dances, shopping for prom dresses, and ultimately walking us down the aisle when we get married. We are supposed to be the apple of his eye. He is how we learn about boundaries, the world, and security. He is supposed to be our protector. We have a special relationship with our fathers that even our mothers aren’t privy to.

I stand in awe of fathers raising their children in the absence of the mother. Regardless of circumstances they push through the whining, the dramatic temper tantrums, and the teenage years where young girls are searching for themselves, and trying to define who they are. They bear the pain of seeing us heartbroken by bad boyfriends, and help to wipe our tears when we have fights with girlfriends.

Yet, for a larger majority of Black women, we weren’t blessed to have our fathers in our lives, or any stable male figure for that matter. If we did have a father figure, he was either an absentee father, alcohol and narcotics abuser, incarcerated, or just simply didn’t know how to be a good role model to us.

So we carry the pain of growing up unbalanced, always searching for a father in a spouse, and unfortunately becoming disappointed that he lacked the heavy burden to father us. We then create a generational cycle of broken families when we bare sons, and the process is repeated. Friedrich Nietzsche said that when one has not had a good father, one must create one. We can elicit the help of uncles, brothers, friends in our creating a village to raise our sons.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan gave a lecture entitled “The Need for a True Father” delivered at New Life Center Church in Chicago in 2005. He says, “You don’t know how to be a father or husband without God. It is our men’s failure to submit to God that has weakened us in our ability to be a father or husband. When you rebel against God you weaken your own power to provide a place for your wife, to provide a place for your children. The more you live God, the more ability we will have to be a father.”

He then goes on to say a “father has to be able to further what he fathers ... too few men know the real role of a father.” Fatherhood, he says, is the responsibility that God has put on the shoulder of a man.” Who’s our example? If God made man in his own image and after his own likeness, then the example of a father is God. So “every father that makes a way for his child should be appreciated for their effort.”

I don’t think anyone grows up and thinks their fathers were the best they could be. We feel that we are lacking something, we remember the mistakes they made with us, and how they mishandled us or our mothers. The things they didn’t do, and the words they never said when we needed them the most. Some of us weren’t hugged enough or even loved enough. I believe they did the best they could do with the hands they were given, not excusing abuse.

My father was a complicated man in my eyes. I always felt he should be doing more, even as a little girl. I remember him putting pink rollers in my hair to make it curly, or showing me how to tie my shoes and ride a bike. Every time he came home, he brought something, be it an apple, cookies or quarters. He always gave us something. Yes we were poor, but we didn’t know it unless others pointed it out. We were hungry sometimes, didn’t have new shoes or clothes often, but the five of us siblings had two parents that worked their hardest to survive and provide for us. No, neither one of my parents graduated from high school. They married young and had children, but not out of wedlock children and no children on the side.

We have been through our share of ups and downs, in our relationships with our fathers. Yet, if we don’t start the process of atonement we will grow up to be broken women with daddy issues, subconsciously searching for a father in the next potential mate … and that’s unfair.

Mahatma Gandhi noted, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

I urge us all to forgive our fathers. The process will not happen overnight, but we can begin the journey one step at a time, degree by degree.

During Minister Farrakhan’s address at the Million Man March, he outlined Eight Steps in the Atonement Process:

1. Point out the wrong.

2. Acknowledge the wrong.

3. Confess the Fault.

4. Repent (to feel sorry, self-reproachful, or contrite for past conduct; regret or be conscience-stricken about a past action, attitude, etc.)

5. Atone (to make amends or reparation, as for an offense or a crime.)

6. Forgive.

7. Reconcile and Restore.

8. Perfect Union with God.

When these Eight Steps are put into practice, it will bring about healing on our planet and open the way for a culture of world peace based on genuine love and forgiveness.

(Laila Muhammad is a Final Call production assistant, writer and videographer.)