1965 ILLEGITIMATE

Friday, October 29, 2004

Before I go too much farther, I should write about what it has felt like being illegitimate. Nowadays, there are so many people who choose to have children without being married. But back then, I think my mom had a really hard time with it. On the other hand, she had been married before and I don't really think she wanted to be married again.. She may not have wanted to lose the relationship with my father, but even if they stayed together, I don't think it was in her nature at that time to want to be a wife. She was exploring being a free spirit at that time. She was living the life of a hippie and living among artists and poets. Nevertheless, it was 1965. I think my grandparents took it hard that she wasn't married. Of course, they took it harder when she had a mixed race child out of a wedlock a few years later. But for me, of course, I didn't know any different that my mom wasn't married, or even that I didn't have a father. This is only something you figure out when you see your peers have fathers. And even more painfully, when I saw that my brother had a father that at least visited ocassionally. I never even met my father until I was 17, but that comes later.

My mother tells me that I did see my father when I was about 2. He came to stay with her, but they weren't reuniting. By that time, he was already involved with his future wife, Loretta. And he'd had his second child, Filip. But I really doubt that I knew he was my father, or could have even understood that. I have no memories of that time, only stories.

I never fantasized about growing up and getting married, like other girls do. In an effort to deal with the choices my parents made, I decided I didn't believe in marriage, as soon as I was able to figure out what the institution even meant. In fact, I didn't marry until I was over 30, and when I did, it only lasted two years, and I haven't remarried since. But again, I get ahead of myself.

All I knew was there was this word, "bastard." And when I found out that it meant child born out of wedlock, I figured it was about me. And later, when I saw lots of kids with fathers, I wondered what was wrong with me that I didn't have one and that he did exist somewhere far away and had no interest in even seeing me.