The Missing Picture: Listening to the voice of my six-year-old

Introduction:

The following was written August 21 while I was attending a story writing workshop conducted by Dan Allender at Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle. While there, I began to learn that, as I honestly listen and engage the stories of my life, I will see the themes that the Author of my life has written there. We see the same thing in Scripture where God has revealed himself in unique ways in the unique stories of individuals. I have slightly edited it from the original.

The Missing Picture

I've never known until this very weekend how something that didn't exist could cause so much havoc in a life--my life. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. But a missing picutre can destroy a life. When I came to this weekend, I was thinking that the death of my dad was the central event around which much of life revolved. That was only partly right. It has actually revolved around a picture that never existed. That non-existent picture has led to a life of self-contempt that is still the scene of the war that I desire to engage, a war against the seduction and lies of the evil one.

My parents kept our family pictures in the top drawer of a secretary. I remember discovering the drawer and its treasures, probably when I was five or six. Because the drawer was heavy, it took time to pull it out. But once I saw what wonders were inside, I returned to it often. I spent many leisurely hours over the years going through the pictures, looking at each one, feeling the serrated edges, comparing the old sepia-toned ones and the newer black and white ones. If I didn't know who someone was, I would ask my mom. There were unexpected discoveries, like meeting the man I was named for, Walt Blake, dressed in naval uniform. There were aunts and uncles, a stunningly beautiful and mysterious painted photograph of my Aunt Juanita. There were pictures of both Mom and Dad when they were much younger (childhood into their thirties), including pictures of my dad working. There were pictures of my brother, Fred and me and a few of our whole family. There were also pictures of Sis and her first husband. Of particular interest were photos of Dad working in his office and pictures of my brother when he was one and older. One picture of Fred showed him standing next to a coffee table with a cake with a single, large candle in the middle. Another picture showed Fred, somewhere between one and two, sitting on my dad's lap, pecking away on a typewriter, the delighted expression on Dad's face revealing his obvious pleasure at having his first-born son with him.

The more I sat pouring through the pictures in that drawer, the more I became aware of a gnawing question: Where am I? I remember going back to the drawer a number of times, looking through every picture to make sure I hadn't missed anything. I could not find any pictures that remotely resembled the ones of my brother on his first birthday or the one sitting on the lap of my beaming dad. I remember feeling a sense of panic, perhaps desperation, as I searched for pictures that must somehow be there, somewhere.

I remember eventually becoming conscious of questions like, "Why wasn't I there?" "If they took pictures of my brother, why not me?" "What was wrong with me, anyway?" I have a vague memory of asking my mom about them, but don't honestly remember the answer. I also distinctly remember (now, after reconstructing this vignette) the feeling of wanting to cry a number of times--but can't say I actually remember crying. The undeniable conclusion from the evidence in the missing photos overwhelmed my thinking: my dad loved my brother, but my dad had no use for me. I did not exist for him.

Did my dad really feel that way? I can never know. I'm sure he did at some level, but the point for me was: if he loved and valued me, why didn't he show it? Why were't there pictures of him showing delight in me? Why didn't he (or even my mom, for that matter) sit with me to tell me about them? Why did they leave me to my own screwed-up self-interpretation? In the years leading up to his death when I was thirteen, Dad and I didn't talk very much, didn't spend time alone, didn't have deep conversation about important things in life. That missing involvement reinforced the message of the missing photos: to my dad, I was not there, I didn't matter, I had no identity, I was not anywhere.

Now, as I listen to that six-year-old boy ask "Where am I?" and look at his tousled brown hair and rosy cheeks and watering, desperate eyes crying that question, I cannot help but want for him someone to come cuddle him and say: you are more important than anything on earth to me. You're my child and you matter. I want for that child (me) to know who he is, that he is, in reality, his dad's child. Instead, the question has lingered for some fifty years, so that child still says: "Who am I?" And the answer still screams back: "You are nobody!"

I'm only now just barely beginning to grieve the loss in that little boy. I've realized, at least intellectually, that in order to grieve, I must be honest with what happened. Before now, I felt sad for the boy, I felt self-pity and loneliness--but I didn't face honestly that my dad did not take steps to help him know that he was cherished just because he was his dad's son. That little boy was killed off by that neglect.

How can I be kind to that little boy at this late date? First by listening to him (me) and recognizing the evil that seduced him to think that way and live the rest of his life right up to the present day in light of it. Second, by grieving. I now see how truly that little boy (me) was wounded by living a lie that he should not have been allowed to. I do grieve now. I grieve because I didn't hear the truth and what I did see I ran away from. I accepted the lie that I didn't matter, I didn't know who I was, and so I didn't dream of who I could be. I sought to believe in the goodness of God, but lived out a functional theology of thinking that the dream would always end by him pulling the rug out from under me. I know, now, thirdly, that I want to tell the boy, "You are indelibly grafted to my soul as my child." Long ago, the little boy was seduced by evil into believing the lie that he is not loved, and therefore worthless, a nothing. Because the adult me still lives in the "reality" long ago accepted by that little boy, I want to help the boy (me) live in the reality that he is loved, how much he is very present "in the picture" with me--just because he is a child of his father. There is no longer any ground for self-contempt, just as, in Christ, there is no longer any condemnation. And I will, fourthly, continue to listen to this little boy, see this little boy. I know too much of his goodness, innocence, and preciousness to walk away and leave him behind and forget that the redemption by Jesus on the cross reaches back into my entire life. Finally, I now see the boy through different eyes, eyes that see clearly how wronged he was. Now I will repeat to him the same message my Father in heaven has been repeating to me: "I wanted you so much that I adopted you. I made you my own. I am surrounding you with my love. You call me Abba and you are my child, and I will never leave you. You will always be in the picture with me."