Love Letters to Anne

Dad. Dad passed just before Covid really got going.

Bear with me, the story is pretty rough at times and difficult to go through but it gets better at the end, so, when it’s bad it’s not the end, and if it’s bad it’s not the end…

Now where was I? Oh yes, dad.

I want to be clear. As a child, I could not bond with anyone. But dad was a little different. Dad always came back. That made him special in my little world. Now, mom was always there, but I seem to feel in my memory we had a constant contention between us. But dad seemed to get along well with me when he was around. Until after the divorce anyway.

Somewhere in the passage of time, about the place I had to start making my own decisions to survive out on my own is where it changed. He was busy trying to placate his wife, I was expected to just be quiet, but that’s not who I am. I was expected to suffer her injustices towards myself and him. So whenever there was a particularly bad conflict between his wife and me, he always chose her because the price he would pay if he took my side was too great for him to bear. It was disgusting to watch him debase himself for her. And she never got enough of it. So, this drove a wedge between dad and I. All through my twenties when I should have been given advice, I was in turmoil with life and survival, and hiding in plain sight from them. There were many years where we would not speak, but I got used to it because like it would be said when I would get unruly or willful, I wasn’t really his son. I wasn’t blood. So, I came to expect being treated as second class. It was a running theme in my life really. I was used to it, everybody else treated me this way, so why not him? Especially with her.

He just couldn’t speak for himself, let alone speak up for me. This toxic relationship taught me a dark side of people. This woman was evil to a different degree. For example, one day I get a call from my girlfriend’s brother that my dad had died in surgery. I knew it was a lie. I was always in contact with my uncle on his side, his older brother. The one person along with his wife that saw through her deception. I hadn’t heard from my uncle, so I knew they were just trying to hurt me. This call came out the blue. I hadn’t talked to dad for about two years and this was how he reached out. Mind games and emotional terror were standard.

I was never given a satisfactory answer in later years when I would ask him about this incident. Did he know? Yes. Why did he allow it? Nothing, not even an apology. Is this what I was supposed to be grateful for?

Regardless, I moved forward. I was still searching.

I’m not angry anymore with him. I kind of kept him at a distance the last few years of his life…I couldn’t trust him. So, he was someone I just dealt with on a limited basis. I know that sounds hard, but after all he put me through it was just healthier for me to not engage with him on any regular or meaningful way after all the water that had passed under our bridge. I mourned him even before he died because the man I had known who was so important, had disappeared.

Broken in his own ways from his own demons. It isn’t some excuse, it’s just the truth. But there was something coming. Something that would alter the course of my life. And when it came I embraced it.