So, I've been watching Ted Lasso Season 2 for the past week. Great show, which, among other things, is about relationships with fathers and mental health this season...which is a bit of a problem, I'm not finished watching the season, so no spoilers. But spoiler alert, my father died last week (or at least I found out my father died last week). And he's always been a bit of a trigger to my mental health...so there's that.
Here is the story I need to get out so I stop waking up at 2am thinking. This is a story told from completely my perspective and my truth, no sense arguing with me on this.
One day, when I was 12, after having a perfectly normal life and a completely normal childhood with 2 parents and 4 younger siblings, the bottom fell out. One day, when I was 12, I had a science report due and the printer wasn't working. My Mom called my Dad at work...but he wasn't at work. He had called in sick. (He had called in sick to get his girlfriend help with her divorce. Ooops!) So, in one day I went from happy-go-lucky 12-year-old kid who made $12 a week in allowance to a kid whose Dad came home, packed a bag, left and never came back. And when I say never came back, I mean it. It was out of sight, out of mind (for him at least).
So here I am (a 12-year-old kid) with a Mom who cried all wknd, a sister who was 10, and 3 brothers aged 7, 2, and 6 months. I distinctly remember counting and recounting the dinner plates for weeks after that, because if I set the table with one too many, the earth would stop spinning or possibly swallow me whole.
So, he wasn't completely gone, just mostly gone. There was a few hours on either Saturday and Sunday where we had to go with him and the girlfriend. (In the screenplay version of my life, she's wearing vaguely inappropriate clothing and constantly checking her watch). They were not the most...stable pair and that's the nicest thing I can type right now. I remember once a brother threw up on her and I was so proud of his intestinal tract's judgement I could have cheered. I might have cheered when back at home!
But that was it. No phone calls, no letters, no communication besides these visits where we mostly went bowling. To this day, I hate bowling, all it reminds me of is all the sad dad's visitation hours with their kids afternoons on wknds at the lanes. Lanes and lanes of us divorced children and their Dads they hardly ever saw.
SO, have I mentioned I was 12? Seventh grade, had great friends, good school. But now we have to move. We had only moved to PA for Dad's job and Mom's family was in Ohio where we had lived most of our life. She needed a support staff (5 kids will do that!) And she went from stay-at-home Mom back to a teacher (she had been one before I was born) and she still had her Ohio teaching degree so off we went...
...To a good enough duplex apartment in not the best/not the worst (think industrial?) neighborhood to play out an entire month of 7th and then go to a completely different 8th grade. I believe my brother went to a different school every year for most of his elementary education...and he's definitely the most social of all of us so it didn't scar us completely.
But it did leave scars. In my 46 years on this planet I have often played the "who had it worse game". My youngest brother never knew my Dad or remembered any part of him. I had lived 12 years in a sitcom family (one with a killer, singable theme song for sure!) and then had the rug ripped out. Is it better to have loved and lost or never to have loved at all, Mr. Tennyson? I'm honestly not sure.
Mainly, my Mom didn't talk bad about my father but from phone calls and cousin whispers I had learned my father quit jobs when they would garnish his wages for child support for HIS 5 KIDS. He prolly would have died owing child support but my Mom essentially gave up at some point. We were poor. My high school had a food drive which I donated to, then a friend told me she had just delivered the donations to MY house poor. I was mortified.
There was a week over one summer we had to live with him, his girlfriend, and the girlfriend's daughter. I swear to you the girls name was Crystal (as in meth). The things I remember about the trip in order 1) My brother almost drowned at the water park he took us to and they kept calling my father's name on the loudspeaker over and over. 2) I got my period and had to tell him I needed supplies. He assumed it was my first one ever. It was not. 3) His girlfriend would keep telling us how good of a Dad he was (mainly to her daughter) and that he cried thinking of us sometimes. Who tells that to a kid much less 5 kids who DON'T have their Dad? (Screenplay prolly has things kids don't notice like LOTS of alcohol and recreational drugs in the house...and it was kind of a shack, and hoarding may or may not be involved. Crazy definitely had settled there for the long haul if you need a mental image.)
So, I got older and grew up, went to college, eventually moved out of state. Specifically, I moved to Iowa when I was 23 or 24.
There was news (between wild silences, someone usually heard from him about once a year but never a birthday card or a "just thinking of you call.") Our father was getting married again but the fiancé wanted him to reconcile with his kids before tying the knot.
Sometime around here, my father wrote me the most immature letter where he played the victim and I wasn't having it. I read it, reread it, hid it, found it, read it again and it made me SO angry. If I knew where it was, I would burn it right now angry. I wrote back, I was in my early 20s and have no idea what I ended up writing. I was mad though. I was young but his horseshit wasn't getting past me. I was done.
My brothers and sisters might have gone to the wedding, honestly, I was out of the house and I have no idea. I could ask, but then I'd have to tell them why...and that's a weird conversation to have with them. ("I was writing a blog, how old were you when...wait, no, not a podcast, a blog was a thing like 20 years ago and I still do occasionally because I'm old.") I'd rather just put up my guts to strangers on the internet, thankyouverymuch!!
Here's the burying the lede part of the story. I was left off the obituary. I'll never know if it was accidental, on purpose, or if his wife even knows I exist and that is frankly, just plain odd! All my other siblings were named. Out of order, but all the rest are there. Do you think they are in by how much he liked them order and I just didn't make top 4 out of 5?
So at parties I have the best/worst story starter. So, you think YOUR father is bad? I was left off my own father's obituary! (In the screenplay, we're at a house party and the record scratches and stops and everyone walks away from the circle in haste.)
Trying to take the high road? and not leave a "BTW you skipped me but thanks for giving me life!" on his condolence notes but one of these days at 3am when I can't sleep I might accidentally? do it.
We were not notified of his death in any way, shape, or form. We completely missed the wake and funeral simply by not knowing they had occurred. Not that we'd go if we were invited. But by God, it's the digital age people, we are gonna find out.
Apparently, after doing some cyber sleuthing, my father was sick for 10 months with cancer and never bothered to let us know or make amends. I had aways envisioned a death bed apology and all I got was more crap. Coward.
Wait, I sound angry. (Ok, maybe I AM angry, wouldn't you be?) Honestly, I don't wish his second family ANY harm. Weirdly, we have felt their pain, if anyone knows about Ron's absence, it's us. I will never meet them or speak to them about all the why's. But seriously "A devoted...father...who was passionate about spending quality time with his family." was a little tough to take for his first family. His step son wishes his daughter "can meet someone like her Grandpa" to which I say be careful what you wish for buddy, if she shows up on your doorstep with 5 kids and no money you've only got yourself to blame.
Honestly, the hero in their story is just the villain in mine. I'm glad my father eventually got his act together and had a family, I just wish he could have bothered to be in any part involved in his first family's lives. He had 6 amazing biological granddaughters and I'm not sure he met any of them ever. Again, I'd ask, but....
My truth is, when they set my oldest daughter in my arms in the first moments of her life, it wasn't my first thought, but while I lay with her in my arms I knew I wouldn't speak to my father again. If he could have this moment with not just one, but 5 kids and NEVER communicate with ANY of them after the age of 25 (I'm being generous there) I was done. Someone who has 5 children should be capable of picking up a phone, texting, heck, he was old, even facebooking a child once in a while. Silence is NOT golden to a son or daughter and now that's all we'll ever get from the other end.
Too many questions left unanswered. One big what? Crap of a Dad? At least with him being dead, it's far easier to get why he doesn't ever pick up a phone or text. Dead Coward Dad with no cell phone plan. (the screenplay might end this scene with just a big middle finger.)
Now, onto happier posts about crap that doesn't matter! And maybe I will get back to Ted Lasso now and be able to sleep through the night.
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