Even before I started remembering the sexual abuse, I had in my mind this idea that my dad was a really big jerk who, at the very least, psychologically abused me. I knew that I had “issues” concerning him, and that one day I would probably have to deal with them.
At that time, it had been a few years since I had last spoken with him. I struggled with my desire to reinstate communication with him – it was so much easier to not have any contact with him, but before all of the memories, I still really yearned for that relationship with him that had never really existed anywhere other than my in mind. I wanted my dad.
The last time I saw my dad was about this time of year, I think in 2003. I was working at the bookstore in the café, and he was in town with his wife and her daughter. I don’t know why he was there. I seriously doubt it was just to visit with me.
Anyway, Jonah was a baby and Wes was about 8. We all went out to dinner with him – Me, Jonny and the kids. His wife and her daughter were there, too. My dad seemed very excited about and interested in Wesley. I don’t remember him ever actually acknowledging that I had another son.
It was weird seeing him interact with Wes – it really stirred up a lot of feelings I had as a child, of what it felt like to glow in that warmth. My dad could be the warmest person in the whole world, or at least make you believe he was. My reaction to the way he was with Wes was a mixture of pride and fear. I was proud of my son, that my dad could love him like that, but I was also very guarded about their contact.
I don’t even know if I was aware of that at the time, but I remember the feeling clearly, and I can identify it now as fear and protectiveness for my son.
Anyway, we had dinner that night. It might have been the next day that he was leaving to go back to New Jersey, which is where he lived at the time with his new family. He stopped by to say goodbye – I wasn’t expecting him, but my brother was at my house, too – I think he was expecting my dad to stop by there. I’m not really sure.
Regardless, I was irritated because I had just gotten Jonah to go down for a nap and I was running late for work.
When my dad rang the doorbell, the dog started barking like crazy, and I was afraid she would wake Jonah. I opened the door a crack and told my dad I couldn’t let him in because of the dog and the sleeping baby, but if he would just wait, I would be done getting ready for work in a few minutes.
I went upstairs to finish getting ready, and I could hear people in the back yard. I could hear my brother and Wesley and Jonny, and maybe I assumed my dad was out there, too, because my brother’s voice sounds a lot like his.
After I got ready to go, I went out back to tell my dad goodbye. He was already gone. I was crushed.
I tried to keep the tears from falling out of my eyes, but a couple slipped out anyway. Jonny asked if I was okay, and I told him I was just really surprised that my dad would just leave like that – it really shocked me.
In retrospect, I don’t know why I would be so shocked when he did things like that. I mean, he is really a tremendous jerk. But still, I was very stung.
I tried to keep my tears under control and went to work, but when I got there I couldn’t stop crying. I let the manager know I needed a few minutes, and I went and sat out behind the building and smoked cigarettes and cried. I didn’t know what to do – it was just so heavy, that pain.
After a few minutes, the manager came out there to see if I was ok. I don’t remember what she said, but she hung out with me for a little bit, and I felt a lot better after that. I went to work and did what I do really well – just kept going.
In the days following, I considered calling my dad and letting him know how hurt I was by the way he left. I knew, though, that he wouldn’t give a flying fuck, and so I didn’t even want to make the effort. But a friend of mine told me that it wasn’t about him, it was about me and I should call him if it would make me feel better.
That was a very enlightening proposition, so I considered it awhile, and then called him.
I asked him why he left my house like that. He said he couldn’t believe that I would treat him that way in front of “his girls.” He was telling me that I treated him so badly by asking him to wait outside for me at my house that he was embarrassed in front of his new wife and daughter.
I couldn’t believe it – again, why I kept getting so shocked by his shitty behavior is beyond me, but that’s what happened.
I remember distinctly having the thought that he used to call my mom and my sister and I “his girls,” and then I got really mad and asked him how “his girls” would feel if they knew the things he had done to his own flesh and blood.
The things I was talking about were the things still in my conscious memory – the way he treated us as kids, the things he had done to us not so long before that in the midst of his divorce from my mom. Just being an overall jerk.
But he didn’t know that’s all I was talking about.
I don’t remember who hung up on whom, but by that time, we were both done with that conversation.
He called a few weeks later to see what he should send Wes for his birthday (which he had never done before), and that brief, awkward and cold conversation was the last one I’ve had with him.
He never sent Wes a present. I mean, I hadn’t been holding out any hopes for that and hadn’t told Wes he was going to be getting something from my dad, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. Just another testimony to his epic shittiness as a person, a father, and a grandfather.
I found out years later that he had called my sister soon after that, and that although he’d had no contact with her in a couple of years, all he wanted to know was exactly what I had told people about his visit and our conversation.
I found it strange at the time, but knowing consciously what I know now, it makes me smile to think he may have been afraid that I was telling people about all of those things he did to me.
I am feeling pretty good right now knowing that even though he is still out there living his life, we both know what he has done, and it is so incredibly empowering for me to be telling it all to the world now.
Blogs and the internet are awesome.
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