Reflection on my dad

There was no other man in the world like my dad. He was what he was, evil to some and wonderful to others... and not neccessarily either one of those things to the right people.

He was the dad that all my friends wanted, and at times I didn't. As I sit back and look at it, it was probably an equal split of the time whether I wanted him as my dad or not. He wasn't perfect, but he had moments of perfection... and some of the hardest things he ever said or did to me or my sister and brother and my mom, my mom especially are what has made me the woman I am today... and I am thankful.

I will tell you now that depending on who you talk to in the family, it will give you a different picture of him. And not that any one picture is right or wrong, but who he was to that person, and it is important to remember that each picture is a piece of the whole, that he wasn't any one of those versions without the next or previous version. I choose to remember him as the whole, because to me only remember the parts that I want to remember is cheating. It may make easier to sleep at night, but it is cheating.

When I tell my kids about him, I tell them the good and the bad, the perfection and the utter evilness. I want them to know and understand who people are for what they are, not what they want them to be, and that goes for the ones that are dead and gone and the ones that they have yet to meet. I make the mistake all to often of only wanting to believe the good in people, it isn't that I don't know the bad parts of them, but I am always hoping that good prevails over evil... I have to say that good has not won many battles, but it has won the important ones.

Back to my dad... it took 6 months of intense therapy for me to be able to talk about him and not feel responsible for him. In those 6 months despite the pleadings and arguments of my therapist, I dissected him into three parts. My dad, my father and Jim.

I preface this with the explanantion that any man can be a father, it only takes sperm donation, it a real man to be a dad and to be a dad you don't have to have had a part in the conception.

For me, the only way to deal with my life with my dad was to look at him completely and seperately. When he was my dad, he was perfection. We hiked in the woods, made bark boats, played GI Joes in our made up world... we had snow ball fights, we worked on yards and roofs together. He was awesome, he looked at the world differently then my friends parents, not always the right way, but his way. He taught my to tell time and do multiplication tables before I went to kindergarten. We listened to music together, he taught me to box and throw knives. We would find the perfect staff for ourselves on our hikes. We played Monopoly on Friday nights drinking Coke and eating O'Grady's potatoe chips. He was charming and good looking and he had a laugh that was infectious. You wanted him to notice you, you wanted to be around him.

When he was my father, he was more distant, more mean. He told my sister and I that no man would ever want a fat woman, and would not talk to us through puberty until we lost the weight. He drank, he had a short temper he was abusive but not evil.

When he was Jim, he was someone that I didn't even want to know. Nothing was ever his fault, the world was out to get him and he was evil. He sent my mom to the hospital on numerous occassion... I called the police to come arrest him for beating her and pretended to be asleep when he stormed up the stairs to come after to me, so that he wouldn't know for sure that I had called them. He cheated on my mom, repeatedly, lost all thier money, took me with him to buy his girlfriend a gold necklace.

There were nights I would lay in bed a pray that he would fall off the roof at one of the job sites the next day so that we didn't have to live in fear anymore. He made me feel responsible for everything. It was my fault they got married and it was my fault that they got a divorce.

I remember at 25 crying because I couldn't understand why my own father wouldn't want to be a part of my life. It was never about anyone but him.

But I have to tell you, that I wouldn't go back and ask for a different person to be my dad or my father. I wouldn't be who I am if I did.

Whether he knew it or not, whether it was his intention or not, he made me strong willed and unrelenting. I believe that I am able to step abck and look at things for what they are and not what I want them to be. I am not going to argue with family members over who is was or wasn't, he was everything that anyone said about him. It's the truth, people want to remember the good in him, for some people there was no good about him.

Do I miss him.... yes... I should tell you that about 5 years ago he was hit and killed by a car. He had been drinking all day, it was pouring in rain at 11pm and he chose, yes chose, to walk out in front of a car and end it all. He forever changed the life of the poor 19 year old kid that hit him on his way home from work. But after not seeing him for 5 years, it was me fighting for his funeral and asking all those that attended that if that couldn't get up and play "Let's Remember" and be nice then I asked that they not get up and say anything at all. Outside of my siblings and myself only two other people spoke. And you could tell that the over all feeling in the room was not one of sadness or lost, but of relief.

Would I have him back? No. If he was back and lived around the corner from me I wouldn't make another attempt to have him in my life. While I would want to believe that he would never hurt my kids... I know who and what he was... and that is a gamble that I would not want to loose. And a person would be foolish to think otherwise.

I loved him, I don't believe no matter what anyone has said that he loved me though. He might of whenI was little, but not much after that. I was his way in, a way back... because he knew I was always going to give him another chance.

Do I wish my children knew him... I wish that they could've known a part of him... when he was my dad... that part of him would've made an awesome grandfather... but again, you can't take a part with out the whole. So I tell them about him, and sometimes it makes me cry and sometimes it makes me mad... and sometimes it just is an is...

I thank him though, for teaching me to have an open mind and a free spirit, to make my own way and that sometimes, there are times, when all you have to depend on is yourself.

His life wasn't easy, I know that, and he didn't think our life should be easy either, so he didn't let...We knew when he was disappointed, and I knew when to stay away...and to stand in the way...

Well... that is enough for today...