After another several months, I’m returning, hopefully regularly. And much like an irritating ex, I’m only here because I need you.
My father passed away yesterday. Technically, he’s my stepfather, but that’s not important. He’s been the only father I’ve known my whole life. What IS important is that he was largely an “absent” father. Now, that wouldn’t have been so bad if our mother wasn’t as mentally ill as she was. I can see why running interference with an unmedicated, untreated, probably bipolar woman doesn’t sound fun, and why instead he chose to leave a lot. But there were still some pretty perplexing choices that were made by him, and suffice to say, since moving out of my parents’ house, our relationship has not been close. When I do come into town, it’s to meet him down at his local bar or VFW and have a drink and meet his cronies (again) who can confuse me with my sister (again). There’s no family dinners or chatting over a card game, just hanging out at the bar until I can politely leave.
He’s lived with my sister and her family for several years, and she’s been a saint. Making sure he eats and checking in on him, trying to get him (unsuccessfully) to go to the doctor, and just in general keeping the old man ticking. I’m glad she was there for him, and I’m sorry that she had to find him. But thankfully, he went peacefully.
All of this to say that my grief is complicated. I’m sorry we couldn’t mend the rift between us before he passed, but that mending is a two-way street and I can’t take all the responsibility for that. I’m sorry that we couldn’t have had a better relationship, but again, that was something he could have started doing many years ago when I was a 17-year-old living on my own because my mother decided that I needed to leave. For the record, I was a good kid. Keeping my grades up, making my parents proud, not bringing embarrassment on the family, was SUPER important to me. I was quite the boring young person! Why my mother decided I couldn’t live there anymore was beyond me, but I honestly expected my relationship with my father to improve without the influence of my mother. It never happened. He never reached out, so what is a 17 year old supposed to think, except that neither of her parents loved her anymore.
And that’s our relationship then until now, 35 years later. I’m sure there’s some sort of grieving I should or need to do, but honestly, I’m not sure how to go about it. I’ll work on it. Hopefully talk to friends about it. Get some insight. Until then, maybe some introspection, some mindfulness, some meditation. I know grief is a process. I just wish it was the same process for everyone so I knew what to do.