Dear Old Dad

I spent the time dedicating a post to my mom, and I promised I'd do another post concerning dear old dad, so here goes.

Thanks to the last conversation I had with my mom's best friend, I have been thinking about my father a lot. It's hard to think about a man who you have never met and know very little about. My mom told me of the one fatherly moment she recollects from that time. My mom woke up in the middle of the night, not too long after I had been brought home. Her internal clock had notified her to the fact that it was my feeding time, but surprise, surprise, I wasn't crying. She got up, not knowing sure what she expected to find. There my father sat, quietly feeding me like it was the most natural thing in the world. That's all I've got and I don't remember it.

As I said before, when my mom returned to California with me to live with her mother, she was tight lipped. I don't think she ever told anyone the full extent of her experiences with my father. The only time it came up between my grandma and I, all she said was that she knew it was bad. Talking to my mom's best friend, I don't think my mom told her much either. She's basically under the impression that my mom is over reacting to things that weren't that bad. I'm not sure about that.

The day we moved to California, he apparently did come to say goodbye. According to my mom, his last encounter with me consisted of him setting some toys in front of me. He called once, when I was about a year and a half old. Used his one phone call from jail to call my mom collect long distance and pretty much just say hi. I am pretty sure that was the last exchange between them.

Every several years, his sister would call, typically talking to my grandma. (Which is weird, I typically consider my grandma and my father to be in completely different worlds that didn't cross, apparently I was wrong.) They'd play a short game of catch up, my grandma limiting the information she gave and that would be it for a few years. Quite a while back, when I was in either eighth or ninth grade, my father's sister's call wasn't just to play catch up. She had called to inform us that my father had colon cancer.

My mom, who still felt she had to hide from my father, he's not supposed to know we moved back up to the Pacific Northwest, used *67 or whatever it is to block her number and called my father's mom. They talked for a long time. Yes my father had cancer, and after his lifestyle it wasn't a surprise. He went through chemotherapy and milked the situation for as much sympathy as it was worth and took off to the great unknown. She and my mom bonded over shared stories of picking my father up out of the gutter after he was tossed from another bar. This woman who I have never met (or at least was too young to even fantasize a memory) continues to call me her grandchild. It's a more then interesting concept. My mom promised to send her pictures of me, and she did, in the most paranoid way possible. She mailed the pictures to my grandma in California for her to send to my father's mom back up here, simply so the post mark would say down there.

My mom and I sat down and had to have a conversation after that. It was possible that I had to make a decision. If my father's health was that bad, I would have to decide whether or not I wanted to meet him before he died. I didn't have an answer. My mom overwhelmed me with it. Gearing me up for what could be a horrible situation, telling me if I wanted to meet him that she'd come with, probably with a few of her guy friends as well. How much danger did she believe I would be in?

The moment passed, it looked like the threat of my decision being taken away from me had eased and it went back to being a not so mentioned topic. My mom has a picture of him. I've only seen it once. It was all three of us, the two of them and me in the middle. My mom in her skinnier, pre-bleach days and him with bad eighties hair and a thick mustache. She wouldn't let me see the picture again. I think it made her sad, or mad, I'm not sure. I want a copy of it, it's my history too.

The last time my mom's best friend called me, she wasn't doing well. Her mother had just had a stroke and it had brought up the emotions of when her dad died and the estranged relationship that her daughter and her father have. She had been trying to encourage her daughter to talk to her father. Yes he's an ass hole but he is her father, and regret is a heavy thing to carry around.

She told me that if I want to find my father I should, even if it means going behind my mom's back. I tried to explain that it was complicated. I don't want to betray my mom, and that kind of feels like that's what I'd be doing. My mom had to me mom and dad for me, I even give her father's day cards. She's so scared and hesitant about my father that I don't want to hurt her, but I don't want to protect her at the expense of myself. I don't want to live with regret. I would think my mom would see that.

Her father had left her when she was five, it was a very stressed relationship and my mom's siblings had never forgiven him. So when he turned up in ailing health after a heart attack and a stroke, my mom again proved herself to be the black sheep of the family and was the only one to visit him. She talked about wanting to take me to see him, I was only five and had never had a grandpa, I was excited and indifferent at the same time. He passed away before I got a chance to meet him. Does my mom regret that? Is that the kind of regret she would let me live with?

So again I am left with a decision, I don't feel pressured as I did before, but it's something that lurks in the back of my head a lot. I'm waiting. I'm waiting for a time when I don't have as many expectations. I have questions, and I am waiting for a time that I won't be as disappointed with the answers. My mom taught me a very long time ago the difference between a father and a dad, I haven't forgotten it, and I know that my father will never be my dad. I know there will never be a perfect time and if I wait too long it could be too late, but I don't think I'm ready yet. I have other issues I should sort through first, heh.

Anyway, there's my post on dear old dad, fun eh?