So, if you have known me in recent years then you also know that I have valued my family highly. I have enjoyed a good relationship with them for a few years and with a few bumps in the road here and there I have managed to continue to value the foundation.
I am a white kid with parents raised Christian (for all accounts)and the child to parent relationship is usually tenuous at best. In a Caucasian family the kid or parent is usually ready to boot the kid out by their 18th year and have nothing to do with them for a while… blah blah blah. It’s very non-nurturing in my opinion.
Well, the dynamic of my family is even more obscure and I grew up with parents as diametrically opposed to each other as one could imagine. My mom worked hard to make life for us kids while my dad did much the same, but he was mostly in it for himself.
Sounds like bitter grapes by now. Well, he never was my “dad” but he was my father. He was everything to his daughter though where I came a distant second; he told me so when I was 17. He also told me I was not worthy of his name or that I was worth being his son. Sucks that this shit can carry in your mind into adulthood and that voice can come back as frequently as it does.
I changed my last name to my mom’s maiden name for a while and when I realized that was a pain in the ass I just went back to what I had. Eventually we reconciled and the relationship seemed to be better than it ever was. In fact, I felt like I was getting to know a whole new man.
Suddenly that guy who had been calling me fat-ass through most of my teen years was a fat-ass himself and looked almost exactly like Santa Clause after 10 years of not talking. I was shocked. He actually seemed like a decent, more humble guy; no longer spouting racist terms at every turn.
He retired at 55 which was a great achievement. He met a woman who is one of the nicest people and was really good for him.
Without going into too much detail, I made a mistake this week. I looked to him for some help with a student loan I needed as I was getting ready for my last quarter of school and needed to get my ducks in a row. It was a loan in my name I was asking him to cosign, which is a big deal and no one wants that ‘could happen’ on their shoulders. I can’t hold it against him for being not willing to cosign for me. It was the response to the request that killed me.
Once again I ended up cutting my ties to him and shutting that door. He can drop dead for all I care now and I just have to put in my head the man is just dead. He was never a ‘dad’. He was an abusive, nasty asshole most of my life. I can barely recall a nurturing moment that ever came from him since I was a kid. I was never good enough and since he told me so, I guess it was just time to believe it.