My father is dead
Somewhere in the archives of this blog is a post about my grandmother dying. It talks about the different reactions my mother and I had: to her the woman was a bitchy mother in law, a rival and enemy while to me she was a nice old lady who gave me Nutty Buddies and watched wrestling with me. One of the reasons my mom hated her was that she and her husband weren't there for my brother and I, and that's certainly a legitimate complaint; they kind of evaporated when I was 10 and were never seen or heard from again. I only found out she was dead third hand. But to me, Nanny and Poppa will always be Little Debbie snacks, WWF pay per views, Bob Ross, and cold coffee. And those are memories to cherish. I don't have the energy to resent what wasn't.
And yet
Last week, that woman's son died. By a strange coincidence, he happened to be my biological father. He and my mother divorced when I was still too young to be forming permanent memories, so my memories of him are all holidays, birthdays, and the occasional weekend when he would actual step up for his custody agreement. (part of the reason I have so many fond memories of my grandparents is that they would take my brother and I on his weekends just to give my mom a break. Where he was and what he was doing I never knew) Like Nanny and Poppa, dad was a sometimes presence in my life: a bushy mustache that tickled my nose when he kissed me (gimme some sugar, he would say every time), a present and a card. And then one day, like his parents, he just...vanished. No more visits, no more presents or cards or phone calls. I was ten. By the time I was thirteen I had stopped wondering what happened and just started quietly hating him. By the time I was twenty I had stopped thinking about him.
I'm 40 now, and he's dead.
When I first learned of his death, I immediately shrugged it off. Thirty years of my life have passed without this man in it; he could have died in 1994 as far as I'm concerned, right?
And yet
It's been eating at me, gnawing away at my brain, for days now. And it infuriates me. Why do I care? How am I not over this? The man made a choice not to be part of my life. He missed my entire adolescence and young adulthood, the times when a boy really needs his father. And in an age of text messaging and social media, he has continued to make that choice every. Single. Day.
And so did I.
I could have reached out. I looked him up on Facebook once, years ago. I could have sent a message, tried to establish contact. But my pride wouldn't let me. He walked out on me...let him be the one to offer the olive branch.
But he never did.
And now he's dead.
Except
A couple of years ago, he reached out to my younger brother. Wanted to make contact, reconcile, whatever. And my brother hesitated. Came to me. I told him it was his choice to make but I'd back his play. IN the end they had a couple of empty phone conversations about nothing, and then he faded back into the ether.
Why he chose my brother and not me, I'll never know. My brother doesn't know.
I have a personal philosophy of not regretting my decisions. Every dumb mistake and poor choice I've made in my life has led me to where I am, and if I changed one tiny thing, who knows what I would lose? Which friendships would never exist? What experiences would I never had had? I look forward, always. But this is different. Because this is someone else's decision as well. And I'll never understand why I wasn't good enough for my own father.
There. I said it.
I wasn't good enough for my own father to want to be a part of my life, and what kills me even more than that basic fact is that I have lost any opportunity to find out why. I'm not going to miss him; that ship sailed decades ago. But now I'll never get to know. And I'll never know why, when he did finally reach out and the end of his life, he chose my brother and not me. Specifically excluded me, in fact.
And that's not even the end of it. Because I realized something today: by abandoning me when and how he did, he immortalized himself in my mind in a certain way. When I think of him, I don't think of the absentee father. I don't think of the abusive monster my mother describes. I think of an easy smile, a mustache that tickles my nose (gimme some sugar), of hugs and love and the innocent joys of childhood.
I can't hate that man.
That man's my dad.
And now he's dead.
