...And that may have very well been the last time we were together, as a family. My mom's reason for staying with my dad was always "because he has a good heart." But until recently, I didn't realize that you can't just stay with someone because of a good heart. A relationship, a marriage, it all takes work from both ends. My relationships....well, those are stories for another time.
A few months later, my dad was incarcerated, as I mentioned in Haunting Me. I never learned the true reason for it, but I know the only reason he had to stay imprisoned was because we couldn't pay a paltry sum for bail. Sometimes, I'd go with my mom and "brother" to see my dad. I was never all too fond of it...I'd see the baby reach out to Dad but was hindered by the glass in between us. He'd say a few words, the ones mom and I had taught him, on those fake phones in jail. It tore me up inside. But I still loved my dad wholeheartedly.
That, along with a few other shocking events, was my 2006 Thanksgiving.
The psychotic man down the street gave my mom the deadline of New Years' Eve to give him all our money, of which we had too little to even have a meal at times. All I could wish for was my dad to get out of jail and talk some sense into this man, or at least lessen the burden on my mother. Like I said, I always felt secure when my father was around. Nevertheless, it wasn't until shortly before my mom's accident that he was released. With the little time he unknowingly had left with her, he withdrew once again for his little business an hour away, leaving the baby of course.
When Mom died, I was swamped with guilt. However, there was a time when I blamed my father. See, Mom always made sure birthday were really special in our house. I can't remember any occasion that excited her more, after all, it did mark the day she had each of us. She couldn't prepare for my birthday, clean, cook, and all with a baby in one arm, so naturally, the morning of her accident she told my dad to come get the baby. He didn't. My mom reluctantly agreed to make the drive instead.
Baby survived. Mom didn't.
Obviously, I held my dad responsible for a very short time, but I saw he was hurting too and eventually I came to acknowledge that none of us could really be blamed, especially not for an accident. Understandably, I still felt culpable, and I'm sure all of us felt some sort of remorse for different reasons. I mean, guilt is one of the stages of grief, is it not?
My father never really stayed at home, but he came around a lot more than he used to. I presume because Mom was gone. In this time, I grew up fast--really fast. I had already seen more than enough in my adolescence, but this--this was real. This didn't just affect my parents and, in turn, me. This was a direct blow to my world as I knew it. I was cast into a role I still am not old enough to have to take. My older sister left home at sixteen years old and she followed her MSMS experience with college and medical school. She was coping in her own way, and her visits to the house became increasingly rare. And because I now had more insight into my father, I knew that I was essentially all my baby sister had. She meant/means/will always mean the world to me, and even though we spent days fighting, both physically and verbally, in the beginning, somewhere along the line we formed an indestructible bond because of the experiences we shared.
I didn't mind all the time, but every day I felt more and more angry. I had just turned fifteen, and I think some of that teenage anguish, along with my father not taking his part as our parent, made me a very angry, depressed person. When he came around, there was never a time when he forgot to bring the stench of alcohol along with him. It was at this point that I strongly resented my father. All I'd get from him was disappointment, but it wasn't new to me. I always felt I failed as a child in his eyes, but this time, I knew it wasn't me. He was the one who failed as a father to me.
Along with his inebriation, came the abuse. He could lie and manipulate, but abuse was never his manner, and I still find it hard to believe the things he said and did. This was "Dad," the man who apparently had a "good heart," who let me stay with him at times, and who would get me whatever candy or toy I wanted in Dollar General as long as I cried. But there were days I was afraid to leave the room when he came home in the wee hours of the morning. Then there were days that he chased me through the house, and I had to lock myself in a room, climb out of the windows, jump over fences, and run to school. There was one day I was panic-stricken when I saw he had brought a gun. I had been afraid of him once in my life when I threw out his booze, but this fear was only second to the that I had for my mom's terrorized life.
I hardly got to grieve my mother's death because of things that occurred on a day to day basis. I didn't have that opportunity to grieve until college. There was not a day in high school that I did not come home only to
burst into tears. Then I took a break from the tears, did some homework, went to band, came
home again and sobbed myself to sleep. Sometimes I'd sleep in my car and once in the park. When I started working, I had
more freedom. I had cash and an escape.
I never thought I would need an escape from my own father. I loved him so much as a child and always begged to have him in my life. As I learned, though, my mom was only protecting us and herself. For some reason I held out hope for a long time. I suppose I yearned for a parent, someone to guide me, anyone to be proud of me. That hope was all I had. And now it's gone. Relationships I have falter and fail because I cannot trust and because I cannot envision what one is supposed to be like. I owe that to my father.
You know in television series, like Bones or Psych, how they always
arrest some random character at first but soon-after come to the
realization that they had incriminated the wrong person? Well, this was
my breakthrough.
All along, I thought my father was the only one who truly loved me. I was truly mistaken. As memories came flooding back of the times I spent with my late mother, I knew that no one could have ever loved me more than she. She taught me the beauty in life, made me strong, and gave me the unconditional love a parent is supposed to have for a child. And she prepared me for all that was to come, all that I would end up facing over the next few years.
I'll forgive him always, no longer begrudgingly.
But...I'll never know if he felt remorse or if he realizes how much he has broken me.
And... I can no longer hold a place in my life for him, nor do I expect him to do the same.
Once I was a daddy's girl, but now I've lost all faith in him.
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