He died on February 13, 1997. It was unexpected for sure. I received a call from my father telling me he didn't feel good and asked if I would come over. My mother is a nurse and worked nights back then and it was easier for me to come over than her. So, at 5:00am I drove to my parents house to find my father vomiting in the bathroom. When he looked up at me I was taken aback by his coloring. He was pale and his lips were blue. I called my mother and she said that he wasn't getting the proper amount of oxygen and that I needed to rush him to the hospital.
I didn't know that was going to be the last time we spoke to each other. I would have said many things that I wanted him to hear. My father died an hour later of congested heart failure at the early age of fifty.
My father and I didn't have a close relationship at all and I had bitter feelings towards him my whole life. I never liked how he treated mom and how he verbally abused everyone. There was physically abusive towards me and my siblings as well. I perceived him as a frustrated, mean man...and he was. I also hated the fact that he never held a steady job and my mom was forced to compensate by taking on two full time jobs. That meant that she was always gone and couldn't protect us and my father who was always home torturing us.
I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there and even fantasized about killing him in his sleep. I often rationalized the deed as being okay due to the fact that I was protecting my mom and siblings. Eventually I graduated high school and left home. I suffered from survivors guilt because I had escaped hell but, being the oldest child, my brother and sister was still there. I watched over them the best I could until there time to flee came.
More than a decade has passed since my father's funeral. There has always been a sense of shame of not crying at the funeral but I didn't. As I have grown, married, and became a father, I began to wonder why my father was the way he was. After doing a lot of soul searching and asking prodding questions to my grandparents, mother, and aunts and uncles, I made some discoveries and even some answers.
It turns out that my father was also raised in an extremely abusive home. He was often beat with metal clothes hangers and locked in closets while his mother participated in sexual orgies that he witnessed by peeking through the keyhole. He escaped his hell by running away from home at the age of twelve and never returned. He hitchhiked (at 12 yrs old) from Virginia Beach, Va. to Key West, Florida searching for his father who was in the Navy. His father was forbidden access to him due to a bitter divorce and he desperately wanted to find him. Unfortunately, my grandfather's ship left two days before my dad got there. He was gone on a nine month tour of duty. He found a job sweeping the floors at a local pool hall and was given a room to sleep in upstairs and did that until he reunited with his father.
I had a profound realization recently and here it is... Since my father quit school at an early age, that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He was almost illiterate and had drifted through the school system not being able to read or write very well, which contributed to his bitterness and often left him feeling inadequate. That bitterness grew over the years as he was laid off from one job to the next. It wasn't that he was lazy but eventually felt defeated. Also, in his eyes, he wasn't the least bit abusive to us. His home life was so dysfunctional that our lives seemed much improved to him. I am not trying to make excuses for my father whatsoever because we are responsible for our actions but my father wasn't ever given the correct tools to succeed in life. I have heard that we all are a product of our past and it is true. I have also learned that we have a choice to submit to our past or thrive beyond it.
I look at my father with a new pair of eyes now. I have forgiven his short comings and accepted him for who he was and why he was that way. I have thrived beyond my past and I am very successful and blessed with a wonderful family. I know the power of words and speak life and encouragement to my wife and children every day. My father taught me to do that in a backwards kind of way. I have discovered how to take my scars and turn them into stars! Thanks dad!
Chatboard (0)