Warmth is in the heart,
especially when it is taken care of
"ChillyLady"
i've never talked about my father very much. And yet the other night i was telling Sir how when i pray, i pray to my dad. i say things like: "if you are up there, can you give me a hand with ... *insert problem here* ... i could really use the help" And i really don't know how religous i am; it isn't something i have ever given a lot of concern or thought too. In fact, when i was younger, i used to "pray" to my grandmother instead.
i was really angry at my father, because he died. i had unresolved issues about things that a daughter shouldn't learn from her father. Typical, statical childhood, being raised by dysfunctional parents. i can say that with a rather clinical outlook now. It doesn't feel like it is tearing me up inside as much anymore. i know that these months of working with Sir are a large part of why many personal issues have been worked through.
But aside from the past, and all that it entailed, i was even more angry at him because he left me alone, to deal with my mother. And her dependancy on him transferred to me, as i knew it would. Unfortunately, i was not equipped to handle it, and i very quickly became mired down by all her needs. i was constantly trying to make things better for her. i was newly remarried and trying to juggle a relationship with the hubster, around her, and was constantly putting her first, before us. i resented the situation completely, but did not have the skills to change it.
i'm slowly working through all of this, and i do feel i am making progress.
And yet, in spite of all the bad, i find myself remembering nice things, at the oddest of times. i am recognizing now, how the mixed messages i was receiving from him ... at once being his "little girl" and in the next instant being touched inappropriately ... managed to confuse me long into my adulthood. But there were many many times when his kindness and genuine care showed through. Gestures such as sitting through a mother/daughter banquet for me, when my mother refused to go, or to giving me money to hide in my wallet on my first date. "Mad money" he called it. For me to have in case i had a disagreement with my new beau and needed a cab to get home.
And he would often dry my tears when my mother cut too deeply. i think that is the most memorable part.
His parenting skills were the "learn as you go" variety, and yet his nature was one that should have made for a very good father. But his own mother had placed him in a foster care centre when he was eight years old, and he spent the next five years being shifted from home to home, until he ran away. At the age of thirteen he had arrived in the town that i was born in, with only the clothing on his back and a pair of rubber boots. He had walked into a restaurant and asked for a job. The proprietors, most likely sensing something was amiss, had taken him in and cared for him for the next four years. At seventeen, he met my mother. When she became pregnant, they married. At such a young age, how could either of them possibly have the knowledge to raise babies?
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it is now "tomorrow" :)
And i am reading back on my words and realizing how little emotion i actually have about my father right now. There is a fondness of thought, whereas before i used to be very brittle. But i am trying to remember if ever there was a time that i felt love for him. i know i liked him. i know i was wary of him. i know that i always could depend on him to help me, be it good things or bad things i needed help for or from. i know i was his favourite. i think had he been less pressured and overwhelmed by my mother, and by the burning need to "become someone" because of his childhood, that he may have been able to have much better relationships with his children.
He did, in the end, accomplish the goal he had set out for himself. He struggled from being seventeen, with a wife and son and no money, to retiring at the age of fifty-five as a financially comfortable business owner. He was only able to enjoy that retirement for one year before he died.
But i often wonder if he really got what he wanted out of life. As i watch the rest of the dynamics within my family unfold, i cant help thinking there was one thing he never experienced. One thing he had set out to have.
He never did get his "real" family.