Part Two

Part two

For many years my dad and I had the worst relationship possible. In fact, it’s safe to say that I hated him. He was emotionally abusive and tried to hide insults in “jokes” where as I am more blunt and didn’t try to hide my response in anything other than hate and loathing.

It might be fair to say he at least didn’t like me if not hated me right back and my mother drove those emotions. He could say any shitty thing he wanted like, he’d look at 5ft 6 inch me at 106 lbs and tell me that I was fat, how ugly my athletic thighs were, that I was unattractive etc.... My mother let those words sit and fester as I’d cry.... “fuck you you fucking piece of shit”

She didn’t want me to have a safe harbor in the storm and I didn’t.

People have asked if I blame him for me being abused and I don’t in anyway. We may have lived under the same roof but we couldn’t have been further apart. 

When my mother told him that I was pregnant he hugged me. That’s all. No digs. No insults. No getting a good shot in. Just hugged me.

He stopped being such a dick and I stopped having to react. Did I like him? Probably not. Years of water under the bridge by then. 

When my parents divorced he took my brother. I was alone with my abuser and her verbal and emotional abuse was never higher. 

Then my dad instantly got remarried as did my mother and I was in the sea in a tiny canoe with my son and zero family support. I couldn’t live with my mom, she kicked me out because, and I kid you not, her new husband gave her orgasms. Yes. Imagine being taken out for pie and being told that....

My dad’s wife had three kids and my dad wouldn’t let me and my son live with him.

We struggled to build a relationship but when push came to shove, it was my dad that I told that I was getting an abortion and there are moments in our relationship that stand out more than others. Moments where he really came through as a dad when I really needed a dad and that was one of those times. He was concerned about me, my feelings, my health and so fucking pissed at the dad that he insisted that he was going to confront him and his family and his neighbors and the people he stood in line next to at the grocery store and the woman who cut his hair and..... You get the idea.... it felt good..... And I had to beg him to let me handle it. For the first time in my entire life I had a man who felt protective of me,a father,  who wanted to protect me, and I was in the position that I had to ask him, beg him, to let me continue to take care of myself.

That was an anger that he never let go of. Not towards me but FOR me and I let him feel that way because.... A dad should...

We continued to struggle to grow a relationship. He took me out for my 19th birthday because I could legally drink in Idaho. He taught me how to put gas in my car because my mother refused to ever pump her own gas. We tentatively took tiny baby steps.

He would tell me much much later that I was the source of many fights between him and his wife. She didn’t like having a reminder around that he’d been married and she went so far as to tell him that adopted children aren’t your real children.

He never let her get in the way and if that meant that on Christmas Eve she wouldn’t come into the room with us then so be it. 

That struggle went on, as far as I know, until current times. His wife had a stroke a month ago and I’d call and ask how she was. The day we left for Arizona I spoke to my dad and I asked him then if she knew that I asked about her and his replied indignantly “ damn right she does. I always tell her”

There are many other examples of him stepping up to be my dad, me sitting in my car crying during a time when my oldest and I weren’t speaking, and me saying... “ I need you to be MY DAD right now!” And he was.

At one point when we first moved to Arizona I sent him a letter, like, in. The. Mail. Which told him that he had two options. If he wanted to continue to put his second family first, not see his grandchildren, forget our birthdays, have one foot in, then I was, with all the kindness I could muster, allowing him to walk away no questions asked. No hard feelings. Or, be all in and be a dad and a grandpa and if he ever tried the one foot in thing again he’d essentially be torching every bridge back.

Two days after he got the letter he called and said.... “I’m all in. I’m sorry”

That was a real turning point. He came nearly every year to see us and made a point of remembering birthdays. 

Next, the end of the rough times....

I’m so sad. There’s no bitterness towards my dad and I know that if he were here he’d feel so so deeply sad about making me feel heartbroken. That’s the dad we’re going to get to next...

Tracy