The effects of growing up with an absent father.

As told to Ann DeGrey

Growing up without my dad meant my childhood was filled with a sense of an overwhelming load of unanswered questions. I loved my mother and I appreciate her now more than ever, but any happiness I seemed to enjoy in my younger years seemed to be overshadowed by my father's absence . Why didn't he live with us? Why was his work so important that he missed out on much of my childhood ?

His on-and-off disappearances were never properly explained to me and left a sadness in my heart where there should have been father-daughter memories . For years I felt like I hated my father. But when I made the decision to forgive him, it was absolutely life-changing.

From the age of five, my dad left us for very long periods of time that, according to my mother and her half-