Don’t be mad at your circumstances, because it’ll only make it worse.
As you’ll be able to tell today, I’m full of energy. I’m Olivia S. Benson and I am the author of actually two books. I’m the author of Answers from Within and For the Love of My Father, which is what we’re currently speaking about. And it’s all about the story of how I healed my life from growing up without a father.
So we talk about it practically every week. We have videos, and I do speaking engagements, and I do a number of different things. I do posts from the books, which are on Facebook and they’re on Instagram, on X, everywhere. This is what I am all about. And the book, For the Love of My Father, is available also on Audible and will be soon available on Google Books.
And the reason I’m so full of energy is because, aside from the divine within, right, I just got back from Atlanta where I had an opportunity to present at an author’s showcase for the Fulton County Public Library. It was a great event. It was well received and it was just absolutely wonderful. So of course, that event and things like it always energize me to continue with what I’m doing, and also affirming, because everywhere I go, people say, this is so needed.
So also while I was in Atlanta, just coincidentally, my friend Jael — Jael the Great, you can look her up everywhere — also asked me to do an interview of her about her book, which is also about fathers, but it’s from a different perspective. The title of her book is Beyond Provider. But the interesting thing is that Jael grew up with her father, and she tells an amazing story about her father, and really her parents, but primarily about her father and what a wonderful father he is.
You might’ve missed the mark for whatever reason
Now, that interview is super interesting because she’s always coming from the perspective of, this is what my dad did for me, and this is how he was, and this is how unconditional he was — and my story is quite different. So I speak to the guys, the fathers who are out there who may not have been as wonderful as Jael’s dad is, but they’re ready to do something different.
And then I’m also, of course, speaking to the daughters who didn’t have the experience of such a wonderful father, and how basically my story, despite the fact that maybe daddy wasn’t all that he should have been, you do have the opportunity of becoming all that you can be. You can transform your life and create the best version of yourself.
Of course, daddies, I’m always saying to you, you might’ve missed the mark for whatever reason. We don’t have time today to get into all the reasons, but the most important thing is you have an opportunity, and there are resources today that you can actually change things. You can reach out to your daughter and you can begin to build a positive relationship with her if you haven’t done it before.
When daddy cannot be there to walk you down the aisle
Now today, even though I’m all energetic and I’m all smiley and everything, I want to talk about something that might be a little bit difficult for some people, and that is what to do when daddy is not there, will not be there, cannot be there to walk you down the aisle. Your wedding day is approaching, wedding season is fast approaching — May, June, July, the whole summer — and sometimes you have to accept that he’s just not going to be there.
Now, I will tell you to start with what my story is. As most of you who’ve been watching know, my dad was just not there. I didn’t grow up with him. We moved away. He wasn’t even in the same country as I was.
He showed up and he walked me down the aisle
When I was getting married for the first time, I did invite him, but I want you to know I had zero expectations of him being at the wedding. But surprisingly, I think it was that time in his life where he sort of felt like, you know what, I really have not done anything for her. Let me show up for this event. And he did. He showed up and he walked me down the aisle.
Now, the interesting thing about that is we had no conversation before, we had no conversation after, and we had no conversation about anything related to my marriage, my life, or anything subsequently to that. I will say I was happy that he came. That was for all the things that he had missed in my entire life. And since that time, I was happy that he did show up.
In retrospect, I say, well, he showed up, but we had no conversation, no discussion. I can’t even remember him saying, congratulations, you’re getting married. And I can see how that would have been a little bit difficult for him, because there was no context in which he could really say that after everything that happened. But absolutely, I will give him credit for getting on a plane and showing up at the wedding, and wearing what he was asked to wear, and doing what a father is supposed to do for his daughter’s wedding.
At that time, the way I saw it, I was already resigned that he would never show up for me. And I was perfectly willing to live with that. I had not gone through all my processes, my growth, my spiritual development, my spiritual understanding or anything, but I was just resigned. He wasn’t at a graduation, at no graduation except the last one, which was law school. But I’m talking about kindergarten, elementary, middle school, high school, college — nowhere to be found, not even for a conversation, far less to show up.
So at this time, I am resigned that this guy’s probably not coming to my wedding, but he did, and he did what he was supposed to. In retrospect, I find it strange. I would not have been able to have a conversation with him at that time, but I do find it strange that he showed up and had no words for me. No words that I can recall at all.
Now, most women want their daddy to show up. And before I go further, let me tell you that for my second wedding, my son walked me down the aisle.
Don’t be mad at your circumstances
And right here is where I want to transition into what I think is important for you. First of all, you’re entitled to your opinion or opinions. You’re entitled to your feelings, to feel about it however you want to feel. But from coming through this experience as what I call a fatherless girl, a girl who grew up without her father, however you want to put it — coming through that experience and having been married twice, I have some insights that I’d like you to consider. I want to share them and I’d like you to consider.
First of all, if you’re getting married soon or considering getting married, congratulations. That in and of itself is a wonderful thing. And the emphasis, from what I’ve learned, should be on the fact that you’re getting married. Now, let me take you slowly down this path.
I have this little joke that I make with myself, and that is, we come to planet earth, we’re born little babies, we come to the planet, and eventually we realize what the circumstances are that we’re born into. In some cases, you have a wonderful daddy and a wonderful mommy and it’s just all great. And in other circumstances, you may get neither, you may get one good one, and there are a whole series of other circumstances.
So I said to Jael, I said, it’s like, you get to planet earth and you go, well, what did you get this time? Well, you know what? I got two good parents. Well, this time I only got one. Well, this time I didn’t get either good parent. Those are the circumstances that you got. And there is a saying in the book, this book here, and the thing is, don’t be mad at your circumstances, because it’ll only make it worse. So my understanding is that you get to the planet and these are your circumstances, and getting mad about what they are is not going to help you.
I had to love the deal I got
What you have to eventually, I learned, get to is, okay, this is the deal that I got. I had a mother who was present without any question — not a perfect mother, but who was without any question present. And I had a dad who was without any question absent in all regards.
Now, eventually what I learned was that I had to love the deal I got. Now, loving it doesn’t mean I’m delighted because this is what I got, because sometimes you can’t be happy automatically about not having a father present, or whatever the whole series of circumstances are. It’s just difficult to be happy about that. But in using the word loving, it’s kind of like you have to learn to accept the circumstances that you are born into. That’s what I got.
And there were so many challenges, so much pain, so much suffering, so many circumstances and things that happened that were just so bitter, that I read Tom Sawyer. And this was early on in high school. Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. And there’s a story in there, the story of Tom Sawyer whitewashing the picket fence. And the story goes that he was given this job and he didn’t want to do it, or whatever the case might be. And so what he did was, for his friends, he sort of made whitewashing the fence the greatest thing ever, and sort of convinced everybody that they were missing out by not whitewashing the fence. Everybody should have a fence of their own to whitewash. I think he got people to come and help him whitewash the fence.
And that was an approach that I took as a teenager. Every time that a circumstance presented itself that was unpleasant, I attempted — it didn’t always work — to change it into something that would be desirable for me, and maybe desirable, would appear to others to be desirable, so that they would come and help me. This circumstance with your father being, let’s say, absent, unavailable, whatever the case might be, to walk you down the aisle is one of those.
Love what you have
And I want to add another layer to it. Here’s the thing. Many of us have to consider learning to love what you have. And this is it. This is what I’m referring to.
I’m going to give you an example. Many of us have, for example, a stepfather. And some of us have wonderful stepfathers that have been there, have really stepped in. I did not. But there are people out there who have had wonderful stepfathers. Now, in the face of this stepfather, I’ve seen many people say, but I want my real father. I want my daddy. I want this. And I want my daddy to walk me down the aisle. Okay. Well, if you can have that, that’s great. But if not, what you have is a great stepfather who could walk you down the aisle.
And so it’s important to love what you have. How could we stay wanting something that we can’t have? Are you going to live your whole life wanting your daddy, who is not available, might even have passed away, you might never have had an opportunity to speak to him, who is incapable of showing up? And even if he showed up at your wedding, you have no idea what he’s going to say or what he’s going to do. Or in some cases, like my scenario, he showed up, but he had nothing to say. He had nothing that he could offer me.
So are you going to stay wanting, just wanting? Because by societal standards, it’s typical for the father of the bride to show up. Do you have to stay there? Do you have to stay wanting? Do you have to stay suffering and in pain about the fact that maybe your biological father will not show up to walk you down the aisle? How about you love what you have?
So in the context of — and let me go back for a second — in my case, if my father had not showed up, I have an uncle who I could have had walk me down the aisle. Subsequently, of course, I had and have a son who walked me down the aisle. And I was absolutely delighted with that. And that’s when I say you have to love what you have, not stay in the bitterness of what you don’t have.
It’s about personal best
And you have to look at your deal. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I’m suggesting that you look at the deal that you got when you came to the planet. And from my perspective, you look at your deal, and your job is to learn and grow to the extent that you transform your life.
At the end of my life — this little girl who grew up in a very, very small town with chaos all around, from the families and people fighting and doing the war of the roses, and my dad being totally incapable of being a father — my thing is, at the end of my life, will I be able to say I did the best that I could with what I got? And I hope that in the context of what’s going to happen with your wedding, and whether daddy is not available and all these kinds of things, that you’re able to understand what I am gifting you.
And this is the reason. Put this in context. The reason that life is not a competition is because everybody gets a different deal. And the most important thing is what you do with the deal that you got. That’s why it’s not a competition. That’s why it’s about personal best.
I’m hoping that this will help you. I’m Olivia S. Benson, and the S is important, because if you Google me and you don’t put the S, what you’re going to get is Mariska Hargitay from Law and Order. Please check out my website, OliviaSBenson.com. You can buy the book For the Love of My Father there, and you can see my other products.