Your father's days are lost to you...

I debated whether to post this or not, but then I thought, oh what the hell, why not? So, this is kind of a ‘stream of consciousness’ thing, so if it rambles or whatever, you’ll understand.


Sunday is Father’s Day. My father and I do not have a good relationship. It’s not that we have a bad one, it’s just that we kind of don’t have a relationship at all. Some history:

My father’s parents were divorced shortly before he was born, and he didn’t see his dad until he was in his late teens, and only saw him rarely after that. He was raised by his mother and her tyrannical, fire-and-brimstone religious mother. He had no male role models in his life until after his grandmother died and his mother starting bringing home men…although none of those relationships apparently were not very long.



My father was a good provider of physical things. We rarely had luxuries, but we always had neccesities. There was always a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and food on the table. He has a garden in the backyard that he grows corn, potatoes, peas, green beans, cantelope, watermelon and stuff in. And we always had leftover potatos and corn and such that we kept in a cold cellar in the basement to use year round. We didn’t get cable until about 1981, after all my friends and most of the family had it, we only a microwave a few years after that, and I bought them their first VCR for Christmas one year. At the time, all these things seems horrible, but of course, things look different when you’re a selfish kid than they do when you’re a still selfish adult.

One year dad’s union went on strike and when he wasn’t walking the picket line, he was picking up aluminum cans off the road side for recycling, picking apples in and orchard, worked a part time job as a janitor in church.



He never ran around with other women (to my knowledge), never drank but on rare Saturday nights when one my uncles would stop by for a visit, he didn’t gamble the money away, or hit my mother or me (and I always if he ever hit mom, he better make damn sure he knocked her out, cause if he didn’t, she’d damn well knock him out), didn’t shoot the money into his arm or snort it up his nose, didn’t buy outrageous clothes or unneeded electronic toys or gadgets, still drives the pickup truck he bought in the late 80’s.

Yes, he was always there with phyiscal things the sort. The problem is, he was never there emotionally. I think that relates back to his never having a male role model, never having a father figure. Nontheless, it doesn’t change anything. I’m sure when I was a little child he told me he loved me, but the first time that I can remember him saying it was when I was 16 and going to Europe on a school trip. He was convinced the plane was going to crash in the Atlantic and he’d never see me again, so he felt he had to say it. He’s never been affectionate, never one with the hugs, rarely a pat on the back.



He never did anything with me, our interests were too different. He loved baseball, specifically the Orioles. He tired to force this on me from the time I was little. I do not enjoy sports (except for pro football), and either he didn’t understand that or didn’t care and kept trying to get me to like it, which lead to my current dislike of baseball in general and hatred of the Orioles, specifically. I loved to read, other than the local newspaper, I can’t recall the last time I saw him read anything. When I was little my mom sat me on her lap and read the Sunday funnies to me every week. She and I would walk to the library over the summer and check out books and she’d help me read them. One time, I couldn’t have been more than 7, I was reading a comic book, and asked dad to read it to me. He read two pages, got to a word he didn’t know (on he honestly shouldn’t, it was a futuristic comic book and the word was a made up thing, like transmorgifier or something), but since he didn’t know how to say it, he threw the comic book on the floor, said it was stupid and left. This crushed me, as comic books were then (and still are) a large part of my life.



He never took me fishing, or camping, or threw a football back and forth, or nothing like that, nothing like what is in these photos. In all honesty, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed them anyway, but we had nothing in common, and didn’t bond in any way. I grew up disliking my father. I can remember a few instances where I actually hated him.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some good times. I mean, I remember a few times all of us just laughing ourselves silly over something one of us did, or something we were watching on tv. But that’s only a few times. Most of the time, I tolerated my father when I had to, and we just stayed apart or ignored each other if we were able. That’s why I say we really don’t have a relationship. If it wasn’t for my mother, I feel rather certain my father and I wouldn’t see each other at all. I didn’t have a deprived childhood, as I said, physically, everything was there, and my mother more than made up for the emotional stuff I may have been missing. I’m not particularly sad about this, this is just the way things are. Many time I have thought of him and not "my father" but "my mother’s husband", which I think more accurately reflects my feelings.



The reason I’m writing all this is not only because it’s Father’s Day, but because we just found out in the last month, my father has cancer. In his lung and on his spine at his neck. They’re treating them with radiation and then with chemo. I feel bad for him, that he has cancer, but honestly, two co-workers earlier this year were diagnosed with breast cancer, and frankly, that hit me harder. I don’t want my dad to suffer or be in pain, just as I wouldn’t want anyone I suffer or be in pain, but I really have no feelings stronger than this.

I sort of feel bad, guilty, that I don’t feel more than this, but, even at this point, I have no desire to attempt to change the relationship. And it deosnt’ appear that he does either. I’m not turning my back on him, I’ve volunteer to take off work several times to drive him to his treatments, when I’m over at the house, I’ll ask how he’s doing, and he answers, but both are in a cursory tone, as if we both know neither of us really care, like it’s something we feel we HAVE to do. I suppose if he makes overatures to trying to build a bridge or something between us, I’ll respond postively. Maybe I’ll actually feel and want a change. Maybe I wont, if not, I’ll fake it, for his sake.



I’m not proud of myself for not caring more, and I’m not dismissing my fault in the status of our relationship, I certainly could have tried to change it, and I didn’t. But he’s got responsibilty for the state of our relationship as well. Irregardless, I don’t see the situation changing in the near future.

At any rate, I didn't intend this to be as much of a downer as it appears it is. Just what was on my mind. Anyway, happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there!



POLT

Where is Bart? His dinner is getting all cold and eaten. - Homer, The Simpsons