Fatherless Day

So, I write this on Father’s Day.

I never had a dad. (For the record, I had a biological father--and a stepfather.) I never knew what it was like to sit on my dad’s lap, be thrown in the air, and share hugs and kisses. My fatherless-ness has twisted and shaped my life, almost beyond repair.

The first memory I had of my dad was when I was about four or five. One summer night, he came to the screen door of the bedroom my brother, mother, and I shared at my grandma’s house. He whispered my brother’s name to get his attention. I wondered then, as now, why he didn’t call my name, because I was in direct view of the door. He must have gone around to the other door, because I remember my grandma yelling at him through the front door. My grandma never raised her voice except to call us for supper-- but she raised it that night. I heard her yelling at him to go away. I lay in bed, frightened. My mother must have been at work at the glass factory, where she worked a swing shift. I have a vague memory of my grandma calling the sheriff. My father was, of course, drunk, as he was most of his early adult life

Fast forward to age 15, when I almost met my father again. I was working my first summer job at the Dairy Queen. My father drove down from Detroit to party with my brother, who’d just gotten out of Navy boot camp. Allegedly they hit every bar in Montgomery County. My dad thought it would be a good thing to come to the DQ and visit his long lost daughter—twice. I wasn’t working either time, but the boss’s daughter (we called her Little Lobster) took great delight in relaying to me his drunken condition. I was humiliated but I wasn’t about to let her know that. I laughed along with her. My stepfather had him thrown in jail. My grandma had to take the train down from Chicago to bail him out. It was around that time my dad got sober.

I was 24 when I met my dad for the first time, since I was a toddler. I didn’t want to meet him but I had to go through him to see my grandma, whom I hadn’t seen for nine years. They lived together in what used to be a filling station, in an industrial part of Detroit. I was a wreck. He ran out to greet my ex-husband and I and, horror or all horrors, hugged me! I thought “How dare he?!“ I don’t remember much about the visit, except it was a hot day, I was on my period, I’d made the dress I was wearing, and my ex commented we had the same long fingers.

I saw him two other times; once was when my grandma was bedridden. On that visit, he met my daughter, who was almost three, for the first time. And again, about four years later when he took the bus to Peoria and stayed with my daughter and me for 2 ½ days. I mostly remember his chain smoking. My apartment reeked. We had no history—nothing to talk about. I could hardly wait for him to leave.

After that reality check, I wrote him only sporadically. Father’s Day was one of those communication “opportunities” when I would pore over all of the Father’s Day cards until I found one that didn’t make any false claims—that wasn’t easy. I wasn’t going to lie.

He died in the summer heat wave of ’88 from complications of emphysema. He didn’t have air conditioning. I got a collect call at work one day, from him, the operator said. But it was the Detroit Police Department saying he was dead—he’d been dead for two or three days. I fell over on my desk and sobbed uncontrollably. I remember wondering at the time, why I was mourning someone who had never been a part of my life. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I was grieving because I would never—ever—have the father I wanted and needed.

I’ve forgiven him, as much as I can, for choosing alcohol over me. I understand addictions as much as I can. I know AA was just in its infancy when he was drinking, and he didn’t have access to the tools he needed, but maybe he wouldn’t have used them anyhow. I live with the legacy that my father was a falling down, out-of-control drunk who never fathered his children and never paid a dime of child support. After he stopped drinking, he still played the horses, and would occasionally send me a money order if he won. It didn’t compensate, but it meant something.

I suspect my father started drinking because of an anxiety disorder. I think this because of information my aunt told me around the time of his death. I have inherited his anxiety and fully understand why he might have turned to alcohol.

So this is why I hate Father’s Day. And this is, in large part, why I am the way I am. It is much easier to forgive than to forget. But if I could send a message to the great beyond, I’d say “I forgive you, Dad—and I know you’ll do a better job in your next life.” And I’ll keep looking for a dad, even though I’m 65. Hope springs eternal