Bio-Fat = Biological Father = Dalton Joseph Marchand, Junior
I’m not sure when I shortened the term “biological father” to “bio-fat,” but that’s typically how I refer to Dalton in my thoughts and when I’m writing. It’s much simpler than writing out the entire phrase and most people don’t tend to pay much attention to the shortened phrase because they don’t see it as shortened. On the other hand, if someone sees “biological father” or “sperm donor” written down, they get curious and that’s not always a good thing. Also, “biological father” seems to be somewhat formal and implies (to me, at least) a certain relationship that doesn’t always exist. I usually only use the phrase “biological father” when I’m trying to place emphasis on something or when I feel that what I’m saying deserves more than the very casual “bio-fat.” Never does my usage of the formal phrase mean anything other than the fact that I felt the formal phrase served better than the casual phrase.
Now, before I go any further, it needs to be stated that I’m typing this while drinking a nice big cup of Captain Morgan’s Long Island Iced Tea. I’m drinking for several reasons. One, it’s Friday night and I’m of legal age. Two, I really like this particular drink. Three, because I honestly can’t stomach the thought of typing any amount of words about bio-fat while completely sober.
Captain Morgan's Long Island Iced Tea
Back in June, I found bio-fat on Facebook. Somehow, the idea popped into my head that everyone has a Facebook account. I did a quick search and almost burst into tears when he popped up in the results. I’m not really sure why, but I guess I figured that my biological father should have made some attempt to find me and/or contact me and if he was on Facebook then all he needed to do was a simple search of my name.
He could have Googled me, for that matter! Seriously, Google me. Most of the results that come up for “Alysha DeShaé” or “Alysha Babineaux” are me. My first and middle name lead to more results of just me than my first and last name, but that’s because I use my first and middle name as my username on most sites.
Anyways, when I discovered him on Facebook, I ran to Jaime almost in tears showing him that bio-fat was on Facebook and had the ability to easily find me as I have very few privacy filters on my profile because I’m pretty careful about what I put on Facebook and I want my friends to be able to find me and see everything. I suppose, in a way, the whole “wanting to be easy to find” thing is in part because of my bio-fat. I didn’t want to make it difficult for him to find me.
Of course, that was assuming that he wanted to find me, which he really didn’t.
I will give him one commendation: He didn’t fight for me.
My biological father found out my mother was pregnant and then married another girl. Oddly enough, she married on of my aunt’s (mom’s brother’s wife) cousins. They divorced almost immediately.
Instead of doing what I think any normal person would have done and looking up his child, he stayed gone.
Over the years, bio-fat has done drugs, participated in murder (by his own admission), and been an alcoholic.
Update 2010-10-02: It has been brought to my attention that the “murder (by his own admission)” sounds really messed up and has some of my family worried that I’ll be sued by someone claiming slander. In my Facebook message conversations with bio-fat, he said, “That is sick just telling you this right here,because I am a murderer also because I have paid for more than one abortion.”
Obviously, I’m completely opposed to abortion and I myself view it as a form of murder, but he called himself a murderer long before I ever would have thought to. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I was drinking while typing this. I actually remember thinking to myself that I needed to go back to this section and add in something about the abortions. At the time, I wasn’t able to word it correctly so I just continued typing the rest of the post. Well, in the end, I forgot to go back. I’m doing that now.
For a brief period of time during the month of June in the year 2010, I communicated with my biological father through Facebook’s messaging system. I was not comfortable enough to give him my email address (although it’s not all that difficult to find, I’m sure) and I was definitely going to give an complete stranger my phone number or meet up with him anywhere.
Bio-fat spent some time in what he calls a “faith based treatment facility.” From my understanding and based on the tone of the majority of his messages, that means he was brainwashed by some cult-like church to quit doing drugs and to, instead, try to convert everyone to Christianity.
At first, I didn’t think much of the “GRACE of G O D” and “JESUS CHRIST” sprinkles in the messages, but after the first few they began to annoy me.
You may be a bit confused now. Why should I be annoyed about something was able to help this man get sober and stay sober? Well, I was mostly annoyed because he used his God nonsense to not fully answer questions or to avoid questions completely. Also, I was annoyed because Jaime and I are Atheists and see religion mostly as a crutch. I didn’t want to think of the man who fathered me as a weak and spineless person who can’t control himself without the thought of some almighty being sending him to Hell if he doesn’t behave.
I won’t lie. Over the years while growing up, I imagined what my biological father would be like. I’ve imagined both ends of the spectrum: (1) Absolutely amazing and only staying away to respect my parent’s wishes but waiting for me to find him after all these years to tell me that he’s always loved me and has been in the crowd for all my major events and willing to welcome me with open arms to his family who already knows all about me, too, because they also love me and want to get to know me. (2) Completely horrible and wanting nothing to do with me because I’m a bastard child and he and his family are too good to be associated with me and even though he’s known about me all this time he never bothered to find me because I wasn’t worth his time.
However, I’ve also always remained practical and realistic about the fact that bio-fat would fall somewhere in between, but probably closer to the worse end of the spectrum because, let’s face it, he never bothered to find me, get in touch with me, or fight for me when he knew my mom was pregnant or when he knew I was about to be adopted by my dad. (The state required that my parents send papers giving him the time to step forward and claim me if he wanted to be my father. Luckily for me, he didn’t.)
Well, bio-fat definitely fell closer to the worse end, but in spite of my expectations, it was still disappointing.
Every girl wants to dream that she’s really a princess waiting for the time when the truth is revealed to the world. I guess that, in spite of the fact that I knew better than to hope, I still did hope that my biological father would be at least as good as my real dad.
Because let me tell you, my real dad Anthony Keith Babineaux, the man who adopted me and gave me his name and raised me, is a damn good dad. I wouldn’t trade him for anything!
I love you, daddy!
Side note, I didn’t really say everything that I wanted to say in this post, but I got a lot out and I fell better. I may or may not follow up on this post with another to say all the other things that I wanted to say.
