I remember sitting in my fourth block chorus class and my dean walking in and saying, “Can I please see Samantha Cimarelli.” It was my Junior year of high school and after three years, the dean and I had grown a relationship. He had been there throughout major panic attacks I had suffered from and knew about the history of my father in my life. Without looking at me he says, “Go up to my office, lock my door and don’t open it.” Scared, confused, and filled with anxiety I walked as fast as I could up to his office and did exactly what he said.

My father, after 16 years of poking in and out of my life, had shown up to my high school and was trying to take me away from my parents.

At 2-years-old, my mother was killed in a car accident the day after New Year’s Day. My father was only 21 at the time. With my father still being young, his older sister welcomed my 2-year-old self with open arms, willing to raise me herself at just 22 years old. For the next 15 to 16 years I was given the “privilege” of pop-ups, where my father would poke his head into the family function, create some small talk to make it seem like he had been there, then disintegrate back into the minuscule corner he held in my heart.

Although only living about five blocks from my house, my father would go weeks, and even sometimes months without ever even calling to say hi. No Christmas card, no birthday card, not even a phone call to just utter the smallest “Happy Birthday”. You see, my father is a gambler, and that is where he would spend most of his time. If he was not jumping from job to job, you could find him at the local pool hall, or any pool tournament held in or around Pennsylvania trying to hustle people for their money.

I can reiterate countless times where I was told that he was coming to pick me up to take me out to dinner and have a sleepover, and never showed. Imagine that, at 8-, 9-, 10-years-old finally feeling like you have a chance to spend time with your dad, waiting with your bags packed by the door, just to fall asleep and wake up to a message saying, “I’m sorry honey I lost track of time, let’s try again next weekend.” Or better yet, him following through with his plans by picking me up, just to have me sit in a dirty pool hall in Philly where you could catch the locals selling drugs on the corner out front. One thing I can take positively from the situation is that my father was never a drinker and was never one to do drugs.

Waiting in the dean’s office anxiously, I listened for the doorknob of the office to turn. About fifteen excruciatingly quiet minutes passed by, and he finally opened the office door. He walked in and took a seat behind his desk, took off his glasses and rubbed over his face in one of those stressed, “what do I do” sort of expressions. “Your father came into the school today and went to the guidance office. He demanded your paperwork and said he was removing you from the school.” I was picked up by my parents from school and taken home when I received a call from my father.

As I pressed the answer key on my phone, I could already hear his screaming through the phone, “Pack your bags, I’m coming to pick you up and you are coming to live with me.” After screaming back and forth I finally hung up the phone and laid crying on my bedroom floor. All his anger and wanting to take me away from my parents was due to an argument that was going on between my grandparents, my two aunts, and my father; but of course, like always, I was caught in the middle of it.

Years passed, and it was a continuous roller coaster with my relationship with my father. I dealt with severe anxiety and panic attacks; which therapists had explained to me was a cause of the issues I faced with my father and also my mother's death. In order to release some of the anger I held towards him, I began writing and making YouTube videos expressing my feelings, and hoping to help those going through the same issues.

I went from blocking his number on my phone for months at a time, to driving to his house to visit and sleep over. He was not around for accomplishments like graduating from high school or graduating from college. He was not there when I bought my first car — or even my second car for that matter. After receiving my bachelor’s degree, I packed up my things and moved to Miami, my father was blocked from contacting me at the time so of course, he wasn’t around for that either.

Currently, at 23 years old I can finally say, my father does not burden me anymore.

I have accepted the man that is my father; the one that was never given the means to know what it was to be a father. Since having me, my father has had three more girls and one boy. Although I was sort of like the guinea pig for him, I can happily say that he is slowly learning to become the father a child would want, and I will be here every step of the way to push him to be the father I’ve always wanted him to be.