I had always wondered what I or we, my brothers and I, had done wrong to make our father angry or upset enough at us to not want to see us or talk to us. If, as he told us, the divorce had nothing to do with us, then why did he stop wanting to see us? Well, believe it or not, about 44 years later I actually found out the answer. It actually floored me. The biggest problem is that I don't remember this too well. I vaguely remember the call and I know I didn't want to so I said I wanted to stay where I was. That is all I remember.
My father died a couple years ago. It was almost anticlimactic. In so many ways, he left our lives when I was around 9-10 years old. After he died, I did stay in some contact with my stepmother for a longtime. There were times when it waz hard for me to hear things like, he was such a good papa and he was the best husband. Well, to my xtepsisters, he was a good dad, however, to me and my siblings he wasn't. You have to show to be a good dad. He stopped showing up. You know who did? Yup. Mom. Mom showed up. Mom was there. My mother never missed a choir, band, or marching band performance. Dance recitals, that was way more iffy. She missed a few until she realized how important it was for me to learn how to dance for what I wanted my career in. Then,she didn't miss any. I digress! (Pesky ADHD!!!)
As I was saying, I stay in contact for a long while after my dad died. Now before my dad died my stepmother had said at one point that it did not make a difference either way to my dad if I kept in contact with him or not. That was when I actually realized, he did not care, he really didn't care. That did hurt as I had been searching for him since I was a teen. I even wrote a letter after I paid about $150 to a company that found his work address and his home address. I wrote a letter to him. I used Kathy's address as the return address because I was afraid of he saw my address he may think it was from my mom. When I found them on Facebook and then talked to my stepmother for one of the first times, she mentioned getting the letter but they didn't know who it was from. All I said was, it was from me. If you had bothered to open it and read it, it would have been perfectly clear that it was from me. They did not.
After my stepmother told me my father didn't care either way,I stopped contacting them for a really long time. I think the next time I actually spoke to her was on the day he died or right before. Fast forward to about 1 1/2 years after my father passed away. I was speaking with my stepmother and she was saying how my father was always trying to teach her how to just put someone out of her mind instantly like he could. She said something to the effect that that was what he had to do after we three really hurt his feelings when we didn't want to move and live with them on a farm. I vaguely remember this phone call, very vagudly. I do remember him asking me if I wanted to come live with him on a farm. We all said no. All of us saying no hurt his feelings. Now that I think of the timing, I am not sure if my older brother was living with them or mom. I don't remember the exact time of how long my older brother lived with them. I was really quite shocked to find out that because we said no, that was why he cut off all contact. My younger brother and I were really small. Our world had been upside down for a while. I don't understand why he thought that we would want to live with him. The last visit we had with him, did not end on a great note. They had a NYE party and my younger brother got blamed for the neighbors kids stomping candy in the carpet. He did not do it. I saw the kids who did do it. I was accused of lying. I did not lie. My brother was too shy to do something like that. Both me and my younger brother were so tired because our bedtime was not after midnight and we were falling asleep so we kept getting woken up. Then, because I saw about 5 minutes of a scary movie, I came home with terrible nightmares. Then months and months later we get asked about moving to a farm.
Life for me in upper Elementary School was not the best. I am truly sorry that his feelings were hurt. I don't think any of us meant to hurt him. My life was so chaotic at that time. The only person I even felt safe with was my mother. At that point, I had been being sexually abused for at least six years, possibly up to eight years, by five different people. I felt abandoned by my dad. I was at one time a daddy's girl. Once he left us, after mom made her pinky promise, I was Mommy's girl. If you look at pictures of my around that time and until I was about 14-15 ish, when I am in a picture with me and mom, generally I am practically clinging on for dear life. I had major nightmares and night terrors. I still had a lot of major meltdowns when mom left for the reserves of cadets. It wasn't all the time, just pretty often. The thought of moving anywhere without my mother was so frightening. I do remember having a few nights of nightmares about it. There waz no way I could have gone anywhere without my mom. The world was not a very nice place for me. How could I? For this, he cut us out of his life, his mind, and his heart. So for me and my three siblings, we were raised by strong mothers. Our sister's mom did remarry and so she did have a really good dad and eventually, little brothers!! My brothers and I had the best mom ever. I miss her so much. We would laugh a lot. We liked a lot of the same movies and TV shows. When I was in the hospital with my bloodclot, mom read all of Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone and began Anne of Green Gables. I had a roommate. She was ,a bit older than my mom and she was discharged before me. She had to stop and ask mom what the names of the books were because she needs to go and get them. She really enjoyed listening to mom read. I was not surprised.
It just seems to me that parts of my soul are so raw and can't heal.
L
ooo okko
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