This post is very personal to me and one I've been delaying writing because I made peace with my decision a long time ago, but thought one day my children might like to know why I had a father I never saw, talked to, or even talked about. A father forgotten.
I haven't seen my father in 15 years, or talked to him in 14 years. After he and my Mother divorced he pretty much stayed drunk, but truth be told, he pretty much stayed drunk while they were still married. In fact, I can't remember a time in my life where he stayed sober for any length of time.
Most of my childhood he worked offshore, which was a relief to our family. That meant we only had to put up with him for 2 weeks out of the month. Usually his first couple days home were okay, but it went down hill after that. By time the two weeks were up of him being home we were all thankful to see him leave. That's really sad, isn't it. He was not a very nice person to be around when he drank. He was verbally abusive and physically abusive to my brothers. When he was home, I hated to come down our driveway everyday because we never knew what kind of mood he would be in and if we would have to tip toe around or endure a verbal confrontation.
I felt guilty most of my childhood and early adulthood because he wasn't mean to me. Although his meanness definitely affected me, I was pretty much an innocent bystander. However, he was so hard on my brothers and mother. I can't help but think that because his own mother died when he was young he didn't know how to truly love anyone, not even himself. He didn't talk much about his childhood, except it wasn't good. His father remarried and his step mother, according to him, had no use for her new husband's kids. This too, makes me sad.
I feel like we were cheated out of our childhood. No child or children should have to live the way we did. The constant arguing, extreme mood swings, etc. were just too much. I can remember begging my mother to leave him on many occasions. But, with four children to support and provide for, she felt like having "A" dad, was better than having "NO" dad at all. I can't help but wonder how different our lives might have been if she had left him. I can almost most-definitely say, we would have been better off with no dad at all. But, she did what she thought was right, what mother doesn't?
I really thought once he lost our Mom that he would try to have a relationship with his children. Didn't happen. He chose alcohol over his children. I, several years later, chose my children over his alcoholism. I couldn't bear for my kids to know the man I knew. I would not subject them to his drinking, mood swings, etc. I HAD to live with him and his disease, but my children didn't. So, not only was I cheated out of a father, but my kids were cheated out of a grandfather.
I've thought about him over the years, but that's as far as it went. During my grieving process after my Mom's death, I often asked God why he took the one good parent I had. Then one day it occurred to me that perhaps his punishment was to have to live here on earth with no one to love him. My Mom was the good parent, the faithful parent, the loving parent. Perhaps her reward for enduring so much was to enter Heaven's Gates early, to get a head start on everlasting life. A life without abuse, sadness, and all the other things she experienced living with my father.
I am no longer sad not to have him in my life, but sometimes (not so much in recent years) I am sad for what should have been. I envy those who have a loving father in their life. I am lucky that God chose my Mom to be my parent, and that she loved enough for them both.
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