A Skye To Remember Me By

Illusion of a Dad

*DISCLAIMER: this is quite an emotional bit of autobiographical prose, read at your own risk*

My vague understanding of the problems my mother had when growing up, barely scratches the surface of the truth. As a neglected and abused child, my mother sought an escape from not only her home and her family, but their lifestyle as well. For me, it is difficult to understand why she would grab at the first thing that came along and showed signs of vague interest but I guess, given her circumstances, it's not all that hard to believe she saw Dad as a means of escape.

The good thing to be said of my dad, is that, without him, me and my sisters wouldn't be here. And, in what most would deem a "bad lot" in life, we three daughters are my Mother's gifts. Mama does everything for us. My early understanding of what a dad was supposed to be was a provider and nothing more. How could I or either of my sisters know any better when that was basically all we had? Kind of like a sponsor for an already complete four person family- with one woman running the show.

Me and my sisters were neglected by our dad. It wasn't gross neglect, or anything, but I doubt that (if Mom wasn't there,) we'd survive very long under his care. Because my dad has problems he's still dealing with now, seven months after my parents split up- when Mom finally kicked dad out of the house and when my sisters and I were shown what was the truth.

The truth goes all the way back to when my parents were dating. Back when dad was addicted to pot. (Who knew?!) Back when he used to take mom out on dates and leave her in the car to smoke and get high with his pot-head friends for hours at a time. Even though he stood mom up on their first date, somehow alarms didn't go off warning that this guy was clearly a loser and not worthy of mom. Bluntly.

They were married, and Mom had her escape from the frying pan- if you catch my drift. In-between details are murky. I don't know them all. Except that I know the drugs thing faded out sometime, I'm not sure when, and a new addiction took its place. This time in the form of pornography.

I guess it must look pretty bad when your three year old daughter finds a heavy box of magazines under Daddy's side of the bed and innocently brings it to Mom's attention, "Mommy, what's this?" Even though that was years ago, I still remember the argument and I remember feeling so guilty for being what I thought was the cause of it. I remember finding the same box in the garage about a year later too. And another argument. I was too young to know mom was scared to do anything about dad's problem. I was too young to know he even HAD a problem.

Why Mom didn't just file for divorce then is beyond me. But I guess I've been taught to have a little more self worth. I'm not blaming my Mom in any way, she couldn't have had much self esteem from where she was coming from. Her mom's is an ignorant woman who is sometimes beleaguering and hard-hearted, her dad was an abusive alcoholic, and her sister is the closets thing to psycho that I have ever met. But finally, this past summer, I guess Mom had been pushed to her limit.

Dad has always been pretty recluse. Social contact was always a minimum. In fact, I can recall going several days without either of us speaking a word to the other. He always came home from work and went out to play golf or shut himself up in my parent's room to do God only knows what.

The last straw was sometime in June, I forget the day, but I wasn't home for the argument when mom found him with his magazines this time. Actually, I'm such a coward, I spent that night at a friend's house. I never heard the screaming, the doors slamming, never saw the tears, my sisters' confusion, etc and so forth. I saw the storm and ran. I (apprehensively) came home the next day. Dad was gone. No big deal. I didn't, and don't miss him living here. But Mom was dealing with the stress of finally having dealt with what she'd been enduring for twenty plus some odd years before they were married.

And that's when Mom told me all this. Quite a load to dump on someone all at once. I can only imagine how hard it was to keep it to herself all those years. Especially the times when we would side with dad because we couldn't understand what they were arguing about and why she was so mad. She was only trying to save our feelings for dad.

I'm mad at him. I feel like I don't know my dad now though. It's like losing a friend who never talked to you or played with you or anything. I didn't realize that was not how dads should act with their kids. How should I know any better, I've only had one dad. I cannot be blamed for being naive about the neglect. I can't believe I didn't fully notice it before. But I guess my mom's a pretty good example of how people will lie to themselves to believe something about someone they love. I love my dad. And it hurts me more that he won't understand why he has to leave. Otherwise he could change.

I've come to the conclusion in my head that my parents are never going to get back together. Inevitably, one of them will start talking about divorce and that may or may not be the end of it. It's easier just to say, "yeah, my parents split up" than to actually say out loud, "my parents are getting divorced," solidifying every small child's worst fear concerning their parents. The break up did not shake me as much as one would think, but realizing now all the details surrounding and events that for so long have lain dormant, and stuff just now surfacing- I'm a little bit scared, to be quite frank.

I keep learning things I don't want to believe and it's hard to keep it all to myself. All these things that went on and the whole time I was unconscious of it all. I don't want these things to be real, but they must be if they can cause so much pain. I'm scared. Wondering what else my parents aren't telling me. It's so hard for me to believe any of it can be true, but every little detail surprises me less and less each time a piece is revealed to me. Maybe it's not all that bad but for the sake of my sanity and all that is right, it's a heck of a big deal to me. It's making me wonder, forcing me to think of what else could have happened, might have happened, that I'm not being told. Do I really want to know? I'm discovering the weakness of the human race, of a man lost in sin, too deep to pull himself out without causing perhaps some self destruction to himself and pain to those around him.

What hope I had dwindles with the new information that throbs inside my head. I feel like screaming. The tears I have now are real, they are my own, unlike before when they were the effect of seeing my mother cry. I hate how my whole idea of a person changes with the things that I know now, I hate that it scares me, and hate how there's probably more. It doesn't look like my dad will be getting "better" any time soon, if ever. I can come to terms with that if all the in-between just goes by quickly.

Events in one's childhood shape the rest of one's life. I see my dad as a weak man, easily overcome by temptation and I've come to loathe things that before I only thought were common mistakes, small sins with no effect on anything else. I see first hand how a thing can change a person, and how the people who allow it to happen get hurt the worst, and how the people who knew nothing of it... how their life seems to fall apart at those invisible seams they never knew were there. I used to be pretty proud of the fact that my parents have been married for nearly twenty three years, but it seems like they've both been lying to each other the whole time. My dad, thinking that the catalyst of this whole mess would have no effect on the rest of his family, and my mom thinking she could handle it all by herself, making excuses.

I write this now, more for me than anyone else. Not even my two best friends know the full extent of it. I just wish I didn't have to have secrets. I didn't use to have any and it's kind of a burden to always be so vague when people ask what's going on.

My understanding of my dad's problem goes beyond just the pornography. Although I have nothing to compare it to, I know first hand the effects it has on an entire family. Somehow it affected all of us, by how it changes how one views another person. I can see how Mom wasn't valued as the awesome wife and mother she is, and how not one of my sisters nor I was valued as the beautiful girls we are. I mourn how much he's missed out in having the kind of relationship he could have had. I don't cry because I miss him, or because I feel any emotional attachment to him whatsoever. How a person can take what gifts God gives them so undeservingly for granted is so vastly beyond my comprehension it makes me sick. My dad is an idiot. And he still doesn't know it.

But there is some improvement. He takes me and my sisters out to eat just about every weekend, just to spend time with us. Sometimes afterwards we'll go see a movie, or go ride go-carts, usually, he's up for whatever we want to do. I guess it could also be seen as buying our affection, but I really hope that's not that case. I hope what I see is a genuine desire to get to know us as individuals, not just those three girls that happen to share half of his DNA.

Every Monday, Dad picks me and my sister up for school. And every Monday, Dad has a note and a kiss for each of us three kids. Not the kiss you're thinking of probably, but a chocolate one taped to the corner of a single paged note folded up almost as small as possible. Three almost identical notes with each of our names printed on in either red or blue ink. Three love notes. Every Monday.

And even though they're all the same, each one saying basically the same thing as last week's, I love dad's notes. Even though they're all extremely superficial and shallow and could just as easily be from someone else, someone who wasn't my dad. Even though I know I'm being naive by thinking they're worth more than they probably are. I guess because I like being reminded that he loves me. And this is the best I get, ok? I realize that maybe some kids would love to get half this much attention from their dad and that makes me feel selfish for thinking it's not enough, for wanting more.

Dad's like a lesson in the different ways a person shows love. He is someone who doesn't know how, or doesn't allow himself to. I guess the way he expresses it, is in his (seeming) willingness to try and get back what he's lost- before he wanted to do something with us every weekend and write us love notes every Monday- even though he really doesn't have the faintest clue how. It's very small and slow going but at least it's something. I only hope he doesn't see this as just doing the bare minimum he can to gain my acceptance, I hope it keeps moving forward. But I honestly don't see that happening because before, he wasn't aware that he wasn't doing enough, and he's probably not aware that he's not doing enough now.

I don't really know what I want from him. Part of me would like to see what he could be like if he actually knew what to do and actually did it. Just out of curiosity, I would like to know what it's like to have an awesome dad. But since, apparently, neither of us knows what that is, I'll probably never find out. Which brings me to another point.

It'd be nice to have something to compare to when I consider others guys' potential. I only know what I don't want from looking at my dad. Truthfully, a dad is the first thing a girl can compare another guy to- if they even have a dad. Which is I guess how Mom thought Dad met the criteria. She wanted someone Christian, first and foremost, someone financially stable, and someone who didn't drink... but what about all that other stuff? I still can't see how she could have just "overlooked it." I wonder if she thought that Dad was the best she could do? I can't help but say that that is a really sad thought. I only hope I don't fall into that trap.