f-day

Rarely do I talk about my father. Occasionally I will share a funny story about him with friends, but otherwise I just don't talk about him.

To the best of my knowledge he still breaths – lives is completely another issue. I haven't seen or spoken to him in over twenty years. It has taken me almost as long to not think about him every day. I know that now I no longer do.

To say our relationship is complicated is an understatement. I love my father, and on some level I believe he loves me too. In fact I believe that part of the reason he has stayed away is out of love. He didn't want me to get sucked in to his life. He let me go. Truly that is the greatest gift of all (so much for the pony I always wanted).

I was his favorite (I was also my mother's favorite, but let’s just say the competition wasn’t stiff). He and my sister never really got along. There is a story that comes from one of my Aunts, so it is hard to trust, especially when you consider it starts with the fact that they met up in a bar. She went up to him and they talked for a bit. At some point in the conversation she brought up his children. He reportedly said that he only had one daughter (me). Not sure what to make of that, or why my mother decided to share it with me.

There is another story. This one told by my sister, so again take with a grain cup of salt. It seems that shortly after my father's mother died he returned to her home (where technically he had no right to be as it had been sold) and was running around like a madman screaming my name. This in fact caused my sister to make contact with me. She called me and begged me to return. I was in college at the time, and felt that it would be a mistake to return (hello, crazy person yelling my name – who knew what he might do). It might have been different if he had called me himself. But this was just too odd. When I refused, she told me to go fuck myself and I hung up on her. We didn’t speak (on the phone) again until the night I learned our mother died.

My father is a strange man. There is a side to him that is very kind and generous. He can be funny too – the life of the party. People tend to be very loyal to him.

Yet another side is very dark. In addition to his alcoholism he was also a wife beater. And I am sure he also suffers from at least one mental illness. He dropped out of school at about the fifth grade. His father abused him – not that it is an excuse, it just puts things in perspective. One of the things I remember him saying was that he felt that anyone over 40 should be lined up and shot. He was willing to go that way. In fact he told us we should just put him in a Hefty bag and leave him out on the curb.

It is ironic that he has survived his daughter (who was several years from 40) and his ex-wife (as well as far as I know a serious girlfriend). One of the last stories I heard about him was that he was taking care of said girlfriend's 17-year old son. His name escapes me (Ralph?), but apparently he has ADHD. My Dad would bring him along when he would visit my sister in the nursing home. My sister was far from amused and complained that he couldn't sit still and ate all her contraband food.

Of course when I first heard this story I thought the person telling it (another Aunt), was trying to break it to me that I had a half-brother. That honestly wouldn't surprise me. But reportedly this kid lost his father (I believe to AIDS) too. I suspect that the state had nothing to do with said arrangement, and given his age he easily fell through the cracks.

So another father's day has passed. Somehow father's day has never been as rough as mother's day. Maybe it does get easier. Maybe it is just that my dad isn't exactly the kind of guy you buy a tie for.