From the beginning, I was, and continue to be, deeply moved by the responses I receive when I share the title for my next book I Wanted to Ask My Dad.
Sharing the title and concept, I learned everyone has questions they wish they would have, or hope to, ask their fathers. As the book took shape, I met with women of all ages to ask them about their relationship with their own fathers.
I was blessed by these women’s willingness to share their stories and their hearts. Some had lost their fathers and, despite having close relationships with their Dads, still had questions they wish they would have asked. One young woman, who’d been adopted by a single woman and never knew a father figure, had poignant questions she would have asked a father, had he been in her life. Some had strained relationships with their fathers for multiple reasons; a long-time friend shared the abuse she’d suffered from her father; more than one woman opened up about how their mothers had reviled their fathers to try to control the daughter and keep her from developing a bond with her Dad. Regardless of their own story, however, they each were able to share questions they would have asked and found that questions others put forth resonated with them as well. Each expressed a longing in the relationship that, for whatever reason, went unfulfilled.
Weaving and sharing my book’s narration, I discovered there is a universally deep place of longing for a father’s guidance and love. There is spiritual truth in this as well: as we long for a relationship with a perfect father who will guide, provide for, and protect us, there is rest when we learn the perfect Father has been with us all along.
Kathleen Petitjean | Fine Art 