Is it Howard?

I'm not sure when it was exactly that my parents divorced. But, what I can remember of my early childhood were nights huddled with my sister as we tried to fall asleep to the sound of them fighting. It's amazing how our young minds are able to remember glimpses of memories and some how edit them to distance us from the actual events, to gloss over the vile and horrible. I remember being scared but I also have a memory of happiness. George, my birth father used to call me criss-er, at least I think so. I can't tell what is memory or fiction, a fiction made up to add those happy memories that never existed. I have heard that when two parents fight and divorce, the children take the guilt and think some how, it was their fault. I never felt that. I felt that if George, who said he loved my mother, could hurt her and yell at her like he did, then he could do the same to me. As I grew up, and he had moved on to a new family and new kids, the void grew. While we were living off of Government cheese and rice, his new family flourished. Sometimes we would get a birthday card, or a phone call once in a while and a summer visit here and there. I always felt like I was in the way, I was a burden. So we grew, we grew up with my mom, single and going to school in order to support us on her own. The last time I saw George was at my sisters wedding, the visit was brief. Perhaps because my dad was there. It was that day I stopped talking about George altogether. The man my mom had married was my dad, seemed like he was always my dad. He raised me through the hardest time, the teen years, and he still loved me no matter how mean I was to him. However, I spent most of my twenties seeking approval, trying hard to have relationships, but I didn't know how and I ended up with guys that mirrored George. It wasn't until I got married that I knew what a loving relationship was. I fought so hard with Aaron, trying to push him away and get him angry enough because I was scared. I was scared about so much and I didn't know how to deal with it. It wasn't until I sat at the desk in the Social Security office that I knew why, why I was so broken and unable to give all of myself to my new husband. The clerk had asked me one question: What is your biological fathers middle name? I didn't know. I didn't know his name, or his birth date. I didn't know anything about him, just the hurt that was caused by him. I some how figured out that it started with an H, and the clerk helped me go through all the H names until she said 'Howard'. Yes, it sounded familiar, I thought. She typed it in, and the correct birth certificate popped up and I was finally able to legally change my last name. The last remnant of my childhood was gone. He was gone. I no longer had to think about him whenever someone asked for my name. Aaron and I had our daughter, and then our son. Our little family was growing. I recently found some of my little brothers, first on MySpace, then on Facebook. Timmy filled me in on a few things, George and his mom divorced too. He told me he still sees George and that I should contact him. I still do not know why I did, but I did. I just wanted to know if he ever thought about me and my sister. Several days passed before he wrote me back. Yes, he said he thought about us, and he missed us. He thought he would never see me again and was pleased that I had written him. There was so much he wanted to say to me. I still haven't written him back. I do want to hear what he has to say, but I realized that I have yet to fully cry, to really express the anger and hurt that I have carried around for so long. And I am not sure that I am ready to face the past. I look at my daughter, and I hold her, I cuddle with my children and I feel the love and tenderness I have for these babies, these beautiful children God has blessed me abundantly with. And I can't help thinking, that if you truly love your children, if they are your heart, then how, how can you just live your life without them?