Father’s Day (Part II)

While my first entry celebrated my fifteenth year being a dad, it also marks the 42nd year for someone else. My father. This is not a topic I care much to speak about but here it is regardless.

First let me tell you that my father and I don’t have a relationship. I’m tempted to say we haven’t for years but the truth of it is….we never have. I never felt I was the son he wanted and truth be told, I don’t think I was. This isn’t just a realization that an adult has but more a truth that even as a child I knew.

I can’t fill in all the details of 42 years of misery and unpleasantry in one journal entry. I’m not sure I really want to dig that all up anyway. As I said, this isn’t a topic I like to speak about. I’d rather leave it buried in a dark place and never have to deal with it again. But….

Margaret was here picking up the children and told me that my father is once again in the hospital and that this time it’s serious. He’s got some kind of stomach infection that’s caused him to defecate blood. So much blood that he’s had to have a transfusion. Not to put too fine a point on it, he’s not well.

She wanted me to know this in case, as she hoped, I’d want to see him in case there wasn’t another chance. She still cares for my well being, at least in this case my mental health. I thanked her for telling me.

Truth is, the first thing I thought about was, "good, serves him right!" Now while that may sound a bit harsh, walk a mile in my shoes before you proceed to judge me. I know there will be those of you out there that will say that it doesn’t matter, he’s your father.

To those of you that share that feeling, I say you’re right. By fact, he is the one who helped to create me in an act of what I can only hope was love. But that one act, be it in love or lust, does not entitle anyone to the respect and admiration, love and undying devotion that being a father comes with.

From as early as I can remember my father saw me as a disappointment. I wasn’t the son this tough cop, macho freak wanted in his first born. However I came to be with the charateristics that were to develop over the years, I wasn’t made in the image my father wanted.

Thank heavens there was a second son close behind me that "was" the son he wanted. I suppose this needs a little clarification. While I can see it all very clearly looking back, you may not.

I was born to be exactly what I’ve turned out to be. This, I’m afraid, was and still is today a terrible disappointment to him. What I mean is that he wanted a tough, rugged, kick the shit out of you kind of son he saw himself to be as a man.

I wasn’t that child and I’m still not that man. Even as a child I could never subscribe to the bully mentality that he portrayed. His disdain for women and the way he subjugated them were never qualities I was comfortable with. He was and still is a pig when it comes to women. He has not respect for them and cares little for what they contribute to a relationship.

I’ve always been a warm and loving being. Filled with emotions I often tend to wear on my sleeve, I was not the kind of man-child he wanted. Thus his salvation in reproduction came in the form of my brother, his second offspring.

This child was and still is the same kind of indignant pig that my father is and always has been. He’s tough, insensitive, looks down on women and thinks he’s a gift to all of humanity. This is what my father wanted and failed at having in his first attempt.

My life as this man’s son has no pleasant memories. I only have memories of beatings both verbally and physically. I have scars you can and can’t see. Things I’ve grown tired and weary of dealing with so I’ve tried to tuck them away. Far from the light of day.

There are so many more reasons I could go into but just having brought these few feelings to the surface is enough to make me want me to walk away from this entry now. I can say honestly that I’ve never liked my father. Let me say it again. I don’t and never have liked my father. I’m not even certain he’s deserving of the love I once felt for him that has long since died.

So, as he lies there in a hospital I’m faced with this torrent of feelings again. He may be leaving, something I have to admit I’ve waited for, for a long time. I know Margaret brought it up in hopes that I might want to see him one last time before there are no more chances but I don’t think I can.

What should I do, go to him and say things I don’t feel? Like, I forgive you? Even when I don’t have the capacity to? Mend some bridges that he helped to burn? Even if I’ve taken that high road before only to be knocked back again?

Why should I see him? To give him peace? If he deserves peace it can’t come from me. If there’s peace for him to have and there is a supreme being then it’s for him to reconcile with that being since he’s chosen not to reconcile it with me.

Should I apologize for not being the son he had hoped for? Should I apologize for having followed my own heart instead of his example? I think I lived my life by the premise of do what I say and not what I do, even though he never spoke the words to me directing me what I should do. I learned by default what not to do by witnessing what he "did do" and that was sufficient.

What could I possibly tell him and what good would come of it for either of us. I’d wind up getting all emotionally wrapped up in everything and he’d never come close to understanding me or what I feel. Hell, I don’t think he understands or has come to terms with who he is and what he feels.

I’ve lived without the influence of a father in my life for so long now it’s as if he’s been dead to me for many years. This is just the physical realization of a life of emotinal reality. He’s been gone for a long, long time.

He didn’t help me as a child, young man or as a married man. I helped to create and raise three children without his help. I built a house and a home for my family without his help. And I eventually dealt with the choice of leaving that family without his help. I told the world I was a gay man without his help and suffered the loss of a career without his help.

The only help he’s ever given me was allowing me to see what kind of man I didn’t want to become and I doubt he’d care muc

h to hear that. I’m just cold over the whole thing. Cold and disconnected. I’m certain that when he’s gone I will feel a loss but it’ll be a loss for something I never had and not so much the loss of an important man in my life.

I can’t even bring myself to read back over this to see if my train of thought is spot on or not. Re-living it now through this entry is already more than I care to deal with. Just let it be over and done with and let my mother go with him if it’s possible. I haven’t a care for either of them.

In truth, they’ve disappointed me. Can you hear me? "They’ve disappointed me!" What were they thinking? It wasn’t about me or my siblings. Oh gosh this is too much of a mess to deal with. I’m spent now. Let it be done. Let it all be done!