No Happy Fathers Day for me

 6.20.2021

It’s hard to pretend on a holiday like Fathers Day. It seems so wrong, like so many do, writing to a dad who isn’t here, and reminiscing, like so many did today, about all the wonderful things that their dad was to them & all the things they miss about their dad.

 But that’s difficult for me to do, when memories won’t come. It’s almost painful to try to remember anything worth remembering… because mostly, when I think about my dad, deep down inside-- the main emotion I feel is sadness.

It’s sad, really. Sad that I have so few memories of my dad from “before he left”. 

When I laid here a couple of nights ago, praying for Becky & for God to hold her close as she anticipated Bruno moving out the next day, all I could remember was the leaving. The tires squealing. Mom crying ugly cries & me wanting to just be alone.

Sorta.

I remember my mom crying all the time, and her coming to me to console her. I remember wanting to write a book called, “Mom, why are you crying?” because I didn’t get it.

Dad drank. 

Mom hated it. She complained about it… a lot.

Mom worked all. the. time. 

Dad hated it. He sat alone and drank. Until he was tired of being alone.

And then he cheated. 

And I hated it.

I remember once he left, things felt safe for the first time in a long, long time. I think… I guess it was the lack of having to hear mom & dad fight, and them never including us in any of their conversations. *But I heard them anyway.

I remember his pickup tires peeling out on the road in frontta our house as dad sped away after many-a-talks with her trying to get him to listen to her and quit drinking, and dad always playing the silent-treatment card & clamming up.

I hated Cheryl from the minute he told us that he was seeing her. Correction… er, didn’t “tell us”. As a matter of fact, my dad never did tell us that he’d had an affair with Cheryl before he made the decision to leave mom & ask her for a divorce.

Things I remember:

• That night when dad left, he moved in with grandma Jewel in her basement. Looking back, wasn’t he a little OLD to be moving back in with his MOMMM????

• Then he got his own basement apartment. I remember the walls were all white, and it smelled musty, & his apartment was boring as hell.

• I remember how strange it seemed, to see things that belonged at “home” now taking up residence in some dumpy basement apartment that my dad was renting.

•  He moved upstairs shortly thereafter. One day while we were visiting, I saw a silk nightgown, obviously not-my-mom’s, hanging in his closet. I think it was red. *the color of a floozie’s lipstick or fingernails.

• Come to think of it… who HANGS their silk nightgowns on a hanger???

•  He started dressing like some sort of beach boys movie wanna-be. The WORST were those leather sandals with the loop around the toe… and that striped tank top. It was as if Cheryl was parading dad around in some kind of clown attire, just so she could get attention for being the tramp that she was.

• I remember Cheryl seeming to me like some sort of parts counter wanna-be… with square pocket jeans, and a rough ugly face. I never once remember seeing her dressed up.

• I remember that she picked us up whenever we needed a ride to town. THAT shouldda been my first clue. How on the ride to town she’d make small-talk, acting as if she was interested in things concerning us, when what she really wanted was her foot in the door, once we found out that she was sleeping with our dad.

• I remember Cheryl taking me shopping for my 16th birthday. We went to places that my parents had never ever bought me clothes from. I realize now that it was her way of moving slowly in, hoping I’d take the bait by thinking that she was some sort of awesome for inviting me to go shopping with her. That was our first & last shopping trip taken.   Go figure...

• And then as soon as the divorce was final, dad married Cheryl the very next day. I remember how pissed I was, every time I drove through Dairy Queen, having to see right into her trashy little house, knowing that my dad lived there. 

• As a matter of fact… I don’t think I was ever invited into that house. Or maybe I was and I hated her so much I completely blocked that out of my mind.

• And then they bought the house that Cheryl still lives in today. We spent a lot of time there on his every-other-weekends with us. I don’t remember ever feeling like that place was “home” or “our dad’s house”.

• Once they were finally married, I don’t remember ever feeling welcome in their home.

Fathers Day was hard. It's always hard... even when my dad was still here, it was hard to find a "my thoughts exactly" Hallmark card that said what wasn't on my heart. I say that because it's the honest to goodness truth.

Here's another truth... I haven't been to the cemetery to visit my dad's grave in a long, long time. Somehow, talking to a giant upright piece of granite, with familiar names & dates engraved on the side facing the tree... just isn't meaningful to me. Even in life, when I wanted to really talk to my dad & let him hear my heart... he very seldom responded. So talking to a headstone would be mighty uneventful. Some may consider my lack of drive to "go-there" disrespectful and not-honoring to my dad. But he's gone.

And parts of me died with him. And that's not a bad or a sad thing. A part of me was allowed to finally be, once he was gone. What a legacy, huh?

The peacemaker part of me. The worried about what dad might say part of me. The we'll tell twisted versions of the truth so no one gets hurt part of me. The keeper of all the secret things that nobody else is strong enough to carry part of me. The always checking the score to see whether or not I measure up part of me. The great pretender part of me. The ashamed of, & disappointed in myself part of me. The ashamed of & disappointed in him part of me. The wishing things could have been different part of me. The dreamer part of me that somehow wished that he'd say the things I never heard him say part of me. The pull yourself up by your bootstraps & carry the family part of me that never measured up.

Every unmet expectation that he ever had of me, that I never managed to please him by doing part of me... Expired. Buried. Gone. A part of me died too... and I'm finally figuring out how to live with firm boundaries in place, that nobody is allowed to cross.

Sometimes I think I need a therapist, but sometimes I think I just need to get these thoughts out, like toxic barf. Relieving my insides of the residue of doubt & disappointment. So I went looking for a quote, a poem, something that put into words kind of what I wrestle with on a prn basis. And I found this poem by Veronica A. Shoffstall called After A While.

After A While

Author: Veronica A. Shoffstall

After a while you learn the subtle difference

Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning

And company doesn’t mean security,

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts

And presents aren’t promises.

And you begin to accept your defeats

With your head up and your eyes open

With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.

And you learn to build all your roads on today,

Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans,

And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn

That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,

Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure,

That you really are strong,

And you really do have worth.

And you learn and learn,

With every goodbye you learn.