Confessions of a Part-Time Dad
10 min readI have a confession to make. And to be brutally honest, it tears me up. When my ex-wife and I had already separated and had already filed for divorce, there came a time where I almost told her to just take James and go back to Sweden, where she was from.
Through James, God called me back to His open arms and I rededicated my life to Christ. But I never wanted a child. To be honest, I didn’t want one with Jeanette mostly. At that time, before we initiated the divorce, we started to go in two different directions with our lives and she wasn’t satisfied with my choices. Yet she still asked for a child, and I still said no. This went on for a couple of months. When she finally got a decent job, she said that she agreed with me, that she had a good job and we would wait. Now, I feel that she thought it would have fixed the marriage.
The next thing I knew, she was pregnant. My initial response was “Holy S*&#@!! What in the hell did I do this time?” I thought about an abortion. I had paid for one in previous relationship already, why not again? She had also had an abortion back in Sweden, her homeland. But I knew deep down that was wrong, so I kept my mouth shut. The next visions that danced across my mind were of Jeanette on the next plane to Sweden. But, again, I felt that was wrong. I felt I was stuck.
I wasn’t a good companion when she was pregnant. I barely even touched her. Honestly, I didn’t want anything to do with her. I was a complete jackass. There were times where she complained to my friends about how I treated her. One friend told me that I should worship the ground she walked on, yet I looked at her with contempt.
Finally, two months prior to James’ birth, I came to terms with the fact that I was going to be called Dad. Instead of my normal nickname, Dogboy, I was to become a father. I started to get excited and decided that maybe I should try harder in this marriage. She tried to maintain this marriage previously while I did not. Now, I decided I would.
Just hours after he was born, he struggled to lift his head off of my shoulder and he was successful! I beamed as the new father. The nurses and doctors wanted to see how much he weighed when they finally pulled him out. The doctor had guessed around 10lbs 11oz at last sonogram.
“10lbs 14 oz James Matthew Campbell was born, by C-section at 11:18am Sept. 22, 2000. Both mother and father are doing fine” read the newspaper clipping.
Jeanette had bad shivers from the epidural, so I got to feed him for the first time. I was enamored with James and when my friends stopped bye to congratulate us, I felt like the king of the world. I was scared to death with him in my arms, but also excited at the new adventure ahead. The nurses giggled and taught me how to hold him and assured me that I couldn’t hurt him.
Now, at that time, Jeanette had quit her job so that she could stay home with James and I agreed to this. It made sense, I thought. I didn’t want my son to spend all his time in daycare, so she was a stay at home mom. James made sure that the whole house was up around two a.m., because he was hungry. To be nudged in the ribs, as she mumbled something about me, food and James didn’t make me feel too happy to be a father. When I came home from work, after at least a full nine hours, I would have James dumped into my possession as she complained that she needed some “me” time. Everyone would say to me, “Raising a child is hard work,” and I never disagreed. However, I felt I was the breadwinner and deserved the sleep. All she did was spend the money I made while all I did was work. I’d work at home; broke my back at my job and even in sleep, all I did was work. Maybe it was the machismo that came out in me, but I thought she should get up and feed him. I never said a word though – I kept it to myself. I wasn’t the type to complain, even when I thought I had a valid point.
Little did I know, something was about to change my life.
One day, while I was changing James, I looked into his eyes and I saw HIM. James looked at me with pure love, trust and peace. His eyes were filled with such innocence. I was stunned, speechless even. Before I could process a thought, it hit me like Mike Tyson (in his good days). What lay before me was a gift from God. His love for me sat, or actually laid, on the bed. His legs were up in the air and they kicked back and forth as do all normal toddlers.
I couldn’t stop what was about to happen, even if I wanted to. I poured out emotionally. I cried like I never cried before. I knew that, on that Sunday, God reclaimed me. As the tears streamed down my face, I struggled to finish the diaper change. It was too difficult. I started to pray. I emptied my heart of all my pains and sorrow to Him, who accepted it and washed it clean. I asked for forgiveness for all that I had done. The look that James gave me never changed while a river flowed from my tear ducts.
Many years ago, I got my girlfriend, at the time, pregnant. Deep down inside, I knew that I couldn’t take care of this child. My life was filled with alcohol and just about any type of pill or powder that traversed the hallowed halls of the apartment that I shared with two other guys. She had consumed almost as much alcohol as I did, but she chose Southern Comfort as her of poison. She dabbled in the drug scene, being a regular smoker of marijuana, as was I, but she never touched the hard stuff.
We drove to the abortion clinic with not one single soul there. “Where are all the protestors?”, I thought to myself but shrugged that thought away quickly. I was terrified but put on my game face and trudged forward. I paid the doctor the $348 and sat in the waiting room. My stomach churned and twisted within. They called her name and she boldly walked off, not a word was said between the two of us. The sound of what I supposed was a super-vacuum still echoes through my head to this very day.
We got to the car and still not a word was said. I turned to her, she turned to me and we looked at each other. I felt as though I was the size of an ant and I should be squished, like an ant. The only thing that I thought I could do was to give her a hug. As we embraced we cried. We sat in her little red escort for a good 15 minutes embraced while tears raced down our faces.
As time moved on, so did we. The emotional toll upon my heart was great, and I dove heavier into drugs and alcohol to submerge the pain and memory. Every time that memory came to the forefront of my mind, I shoved it back into its “special” box and hid the box in another spot.
Please understand, my face hurt from how hard I had cried as James laid there in front of me. That little story I just told you replayed itself in my mind. It crushed me. It was like some type of wall was removed and there was my sin, naked as the day I was born. I had never been so ashamed of myself until that moment.
I cried even harder, which I thought was impossible. I prayed in earnest. I asked Him for forgiveness, for I knew I broke one of His commandments, “Thou Shall Not Kill”. What really topped it off for me was the fact that I hid it within its little box and didn’t even realize it until that very moment when He open the box for me to see. I don’t know why I said it, but I think I felt that I need to cover all my bases. “Please tell my unborn child that I’m sorry,” passed my parched and quivering lips.
“He is with me,” came the completely unexpected reply.
At that point, any more conversation would be pointless, as I could do nothing but cry. I was cleansed that Sunday. I felt at peace and I started seeking a closer walk with God. However, unfortunately, this is not the end of the story.
You see, when I started actively seeking Him, that was when we went separate ways. I began seeking God and His wisdom while she sought the affections of a bottle with her new friends.
One day, Jeanette more or less told me that she was taking James and visiting Sweden for the summer – three months. I agreed, knowing that she would go regardless of my wishes. I trusted in the Lord that she would come back. Obviously, I didn’t give it completely to Him because it tore me up, the thought of him gone. When it was time for her to leave, my heart tore in two as I watched James look at me with confusion. Him and I went in separate directions, and those precious eyes haunted me for days as his hands reached out for me.
I didn’t make it to the car before I started to cry. I forced myself to keep it straight as I became the world’s fastest walker so I could get to the truck. The way I dealt with the pain was to drink a bottle of Scotch Whiskey straight, every night.
Fast-forward seven months and thousands of dollars later, she finally got back. The first words that came out of her mouth were, “Which room do you want to sleep in? You can have the master bedroom, but the crib comes with me.” It was followed by, “Wherever I go, James goes.”
Even though we were no longer as one, Jeanette still wanted me to play the role of husband, but did not want me as one. That was a battle I fought with her and things got rocky but livable . . . just barely.
I got my own place and shortly after ran into my old girlfriend, the one who I paid for the abortion. The floodgates opened that night we first met up again and, in a whirlwind long distance relationship, we became an item. That didn’t seem to be okay with Jeanette. With the stress of Jeanette always calling, always in some dire need of something, and the incessant negativity of my parents, somehow I find I was on the road to moving in with my ex-girlfriend. I figured, job-wise, that my resume would carry me and I would be able to get a job. I was dead wrong.
I also felt that not being around to wait on Jeanette, hand and foot, would force her to come to the realization that we no longer were an item, and she was not my responsibility anymore. However, my plan backfired. It got ten times worse. I was denied visitation on numerous occasions for one reason or another. Then, to add the stress of not finding a job, there is the stress of the ex-girlfriend, which is a story in itself.
Again, I found myself in a bad way. My minds’ eye was not on James, or God, but me and my new relationship. What could I do to make her happy? I wished I could have turned back the sands of time and erased that mistake of fatherhood. Fortunately, God voiced his reason in my thick skull and I didn’t turn my back on him. I actually fought to be able to see him, which understandably caused more stress in my life. With parents that believed that I had left him and a best friend (former) who thought the same, I tried to get my point across to no avail.
After a year of battles with friends and family, things started to settle down and I was able to start to become a father to James again, trying to teach him how to become a man – something that never took place between my dad and I. Finally, I decided that I had enough. I had no job, no money and I knew that something had to change for my stagnant career to remain alive. So I moved back in with my parents. That, my friends, was probably the smartest thing I could have done.
I don’t know what hurts worse: being denied visitation or watching James cry after I drop him off from my weekend visitation. I know that through my presence here I am doing worlds for him. It does worlds for me too. I am continuously reminded of how truly lucky I am to have a son.
Now that I have been back for about five months, my time with James has increased. I have tried to patch up some of the hurts that I caused Jeanette and, for the first time in a long time, I feel at peace.
