Part 2– Dad’s Visit

I thought I’d sit down and have a nice hot mug of chamomile while I wrote this blog post. I can’t sleep so great sometimes, and I like to think the chamomile helps. When I was little, my mom would make me a warm cup of honey milk before bed if I was especially anxious about something. Sometimes she would bring it to me in bed in this same mug:

She got the mug for her 28th birthday. And now it’s my favorite. It’s faded and has a pretty bad chip in it right above the handle. It makes the coffee spill all over me if I am not mindful. But I don’t really mind the chips. It was moms and has sentiment. Jeremy keeps trying to get me to throw it away because he insists I could find another just like it. But considering I only have a handful of things left that my mom actually touched, I’m not in a hurry to throw the mug away. And, well, her sense of humor is written all over the mug. Too special to toss…

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I want to just be positive about my dad because we’ve truly come a long way. I mean, sort of. We talk on the phone and exchange cards and all that. We didn’t do that for 14 years, so it’s progress. But I guess I still have some hurt feelings. That will never go away because it was never dealt with and never will be. You take an emotional creature like me, and a creature like him that is violently resistent to feelings and put them into the same gene pool? You get a whole lotta nuthin. OR you get something but it’s far from closeness or communication.

Somewhere along the way I quit giving a flying fuck about whether or not we had the closeness part. I mean, emotionally the only people that ever fullfilled me were my mom and Jeremy. And that’s alright because some people don’t even get that. My dad is just real simple. And I’m anything but.

I’m still mad though. I’m mad because he didn’t give a rat’s ass about me when I needed it most. He took care of my step brother, Sean, who was 4 years older than me. He put him through college, let him live in his home until mid to late 20’s, and then GAVE him a home when Sean was finally mature enough to move out. My dad isn’t lacking money, ohhhhhh no. Not at all. So even if he couldn’t be there for me emotionally, I sure would have loved a little monetary support.

But he kicked me out of his home 6 montsh before high school graduation. Stupid me. I should have just gotten my GED and gone off to college. But I wanted to finish high school (even thought I hated it and that whole Chemistry teacher thing was going down at the same time). So I lived in my car and toughed it out until I graduated. I winged it from there. The rumor that I was pregnant with a little black baby didn’t go over so well for him either.

I settled on Beauty School instead of college. I didn’t have a lot of confidence and certainly not the imagination to go to a real college. I could be in and out of Beauty School in one year rather than four, so it was a no brainer.I figured that since Dad had paid for Sean’s college degree (and a lot of failed classed too), he surely wouldn’t mind paying my way through a cheap little ghetto Beauty School. I asked him, he said yes, I was so grateful. We set up payment plans and he recieved a bill every month… But he never paid. And 3 months into school they told me they needed a large payment because my dad hadn’t made the payments. I was floored. And hurt. I should have called him. But I was so humbled by asking him in the first place that I didn’t want to have to BEG him to remember me. I’m just not that kind of gal. I lived in my CAR my senior year, for God’s sake, I don’t need anyone to do anything for me! So I packed up my manequin head, books, and supplies, and headed for the closest stripper pole. I needed money to feed my child, not false promises and a run around or some silly small shot dream of having a career. I needed money.

So I’d hear about the jobs my dad and his wife would get my step-brother, about the house he was able to buy because of the free house they gave him. And then he just bought another house recently because, well, when someone gives you a head start like that you’re gonna do well. I finally put myself through college and have the loans to show for it. Sean has no school loans to pay off and that’s a $25,000 head start all by iteself! And you wanna know something? It makes me jealous. And I’m not the kind that gets jealous. But I am jealous of him. Because he is my dad’s chosen one. And me? Despite that I’m dad’s real blood and Sean isn’t, I’m nothing more than some bastard with nigro babies to him. Fuck them! What else am I supposed to say!? I’m bitter about it. And I’m sad that I didn’t get 1/10th of the care or support Sean did. What did I do wrong!?

Jeremy tells me, “Fuck ‘em, we have way more than any of them.” Yes, ohhh yes. We doooo! I’m so grateful that I have him and my babies and I wouldn’t trade that for their support and acceptance. No way. But I just wonder… Why couldn’t I have had both? Wasn’t losing my mom enough? I couldn’t have gotten a dad out of the whole deal, one that used all of his many resources to help ALL of his children, not just the ones that utterly complied?

And there’s this little part of me that wonders if I’m his daughter at all… Mom was not the most loyal creature. Maybe my dad knew that. Maybe he never connected to me because he too wondered… I guess we’ll never really know. Doesn’t matter really. It wouldn’t change anything, you know? It wouldn’t have made us closer just because I carried his DNA. It wouldn’t have made us more distant if I failed the test. Because I have failed his tests. Miserably. I guess it helps me sort through the rejection by imagining that he’s not my father.

And the truth is, seriously, what could this man possibly have to offer me now? None of it matters now. I am all grown up. I don’t need anyone to wipe my nose or kiss my boo-boo. I do the boo-boo kissing now. And no one handed me shit. No one gave me even a $5 loan along the way. Jeremy either. No one gave us nuthin. We built our empire all by ourselves– no head starts, no pats on the back, no nothing. And that’s alright, you know? It’s just that way for some.

I spent less than 24 hours with my dad. He spent more time on a tour bus checking out the scenes in my town than he did hanging out with my family. He hardly even spoke to my children. You can’t change the nature of things though, you know? Some things just are what they are. I’m grateful, I guess, that we are pleasant with one another. That if either of us goes on to the next place, we at least had peace and a bit of forgiveness between us. But he will never fill the void of my mom. And maybe I’ve spent too much time wishing he could be nearly as loving and accepting of me as she was.

Ughhh, I could go on and on about it. But really, I guess the visit served no other purpose but to remind me of why I feel hurt. I mean, in every conversation we had I heard Sean’s name or how successful Sean is or how cute Sean’s kid is. Yayyy Sean!

I’ll sort through it and probably settle back into my comfort and closure I had about it before the visit. But right this second, I’m just kind of bummed out… And that’s the end of that…

Posted by: stepherz | 07-18-2009 | 05:07 AM
Posted in: Just Me