I have sat and thought and thought about what I could talk about on this day. I am drawing a blank. So I will just let my fingers do the typing here.
My father left us when I was three years old. I have no memories of him… none. My mother had always been under the impression that she was his first wife. She wasn’t. When I did my 100 thing’s list, I mentioned “the search” for him. I was 35, and suddenly I went from an almost only child, (half-brother from my mother, but she had not searched for him at this point), to having older and younger half-siblings. It was in the process of these calls that I found out my father had passed away a year earlier from pancreatic cancer. I also found out that I had a living Grandfather… who has since passed on and aunts and uncles everywhere.
I learned that my father was a nomadic person. He left his older kids when they were about the same age as I was when he left us behind. My older half-brother was named after his dad (see, I can’t even refer to him properly) James Paul and he is the best older brother a gal could ever have. He had also done his own search. He was also too late when he finally “found” where he had been. He also discovered that there might be another girl child between them and me. We are not sure.
The sad part is that my father attempted once to go back and see the older siblings. My brother’s mom would not allow it and so he just gave up. He also gave up on me before even trying. He finally found someone that he meshed with and stayed with her until his death. They had 3 boys together and as previously mentioned in my “100 things” post, I have never met them. It has been 14 years since this search and I still have no closure.
Why you ask? I never had a chance to express to him my feelings of hurt of being left behind. My Aunt Judy tells me often enough that I didn’t miss a thing. He was not worth the dirt under my shoes. He was not a good father when he was with us and he proved it by leaving. This may be all too true, but it still does not settle my aching heart. I never had a father figure that I could look up to, until recently that is. But even though I have one now… it does relieve the fact that my father was not there to watch me grow up. He was not there to see me when I graduated from first grade, lose my baby teeth, calm my fears and hurts, pick me up when I fell, etc, etc, and etc. You just can’t get those things back, ya know?
The worst part of all this was when I found out the twenty years he was married to this new wife, he lived only an hour away from us in Florida. I went through so much during those years and he was only an hour away. It was also very apparent that the new wife was also never told of the previous wives and kids. She was in for a shock when she had not just one but two of us contact her within one year. She is a very nice person and very patient with us. We met her together, Jim and I, and it was a good meeting. Dorothy could not be blamed for my father’s shortcomings. As I look back on all this now, I still do not know what my reaction would have been if he had still been alive. I don’t know if I would have burst into tears and taken a hug, or more than likely dealt with suppressed anger and wanting to bitch slap him.
These things will always haunt me and they are some of what has kept me in an unhappy house. I stay so my son has his father figure. He may not be the best one, but he is the only one he has. I don’t want him to have to go through the same non-closure I have had to deal with all my life. When he is a bit older I won’t feel so guilty about separating the family into two units.
I often wonder if my lack of a proper male figure in my life would have changed anything about me. I don’t think so. I still have no rough edges, I still trust too much and love too hard. These things I think would still have been there. What might not be… my need to be loved. Oh well… time marches on.
I hope that all you men out there tell your kids this weekend how much you love them. If you are not in their lives, please make sure your kids KNOW that you are still there for them. If you have not hugged and kissed your kids lately… do so for me.
I can’t say that I will ever like this particular day… because it reminds me of all the things I never got to say.
