Father's Day...without my Dad

Father's Day is bittersweet for me...it always has been!  My father passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on August 2, 2006.  I don't know how you ever fully grieve that kind of loss.  No matter what kind of man or father he might have been that kind of a loss is so very hard to process.  I don't think I ever have fully processed that.  Life went on and a month later I got very ill and had to fight for my own life.  And fight I did!

I struggle so much with his death because I don't think that he ever fought hard enough in this life for himself or for his daughters.  I think he gave up on himself a long time before he and I ever met.  I think that maybe at first, I was good for him and his life.  And then along came my sister, and the responsibilities of life and having a family just became too much.  And a lifetime before us of abuse and alcoholism took over, and we lost him. 

I had lost him so many times before August 2, 2006.  I lost him the first time I found him passed out drunk with a Jim Beam bottle in his hand.  I lost him every time he promised me something, while he was drunk, that never came true.  I lost him when he moved out when I was 11.  I lost him again weeks before my 14th birthday. 

Our paths crossed over the years many time.  I was the dutiful daughter and I called every Sunday, just like a good girl did because he expected that.  He always expected so much of us when he gave so little to us.  I loved him through it all.  I loved him when he didn't deserve it and when it didn't feel like he loved me back.  I loved him in spite of who he was.  I loved him because he was my Daddy.

I don't think fathers or mothers totally understand the real influence they have on their children until maybe when they become parents themselves.  Unfortunately, sometimes we realize it after years of doing the wrong things.  I know I have spent so much time not making the same mistakes he did, that I have made million other ones.  I believed that if I didn't drink and I didn't get divorced, then everything would be fine.

If only life stayed as simple as it does when you are a child.  Cut and dry.  Easy.  Simple.

In the last few years of his life, my Dad returned to me again.  Our Sunday calls were always something that I look forward to.  Only today, looking back now, I realize that those could have been in person visits.  He only lived an hour from me!  Yet, getting together was such a chore.  That makes me sad.  I wasn't even worth a drive...

But, we must forgive and move on...or I will find myself in another rage or fit over all the things he didn't do or couldn't do.  I believe they might be one in the same.  I miss him.  I miss his voice and the friendship he offered me.  He might not have been the best Dad, but he was a good friend.  Someone I could talk to about anything...and we argued!  But, I guess that what was what we did!

~k