I had a dream this morning about my mother trying to break in, bloated beyond recognition, terrifying...disgusting.
I saw my father yesterday. The signs are there. Won't be long now. The death of his liver... and my father.
I never had a father.
I had "Bear". The biker. Who did what.ever. the. fuck. he. wanted.
And at least, there is a small consolation prize that that is something. Lived doing whatever he felt like, like an obnoxious, wild, headstrong 70s child. Be it cocaine or chocolate milk, beer or crank or Disneyland or maybe even heroine. He says he got Hep C from a drug transfusion, but.... well, that's what he told his mother, who has, at the time, also dieing. That has been about -what ? Five years ago?
Two rounds of painful inferion treatment later.
This last year
not till my first born (and only born) was already around at least eight or nine months old- did he start showing up- always carting around one, two, or all four of my sister's kids. A Boardwalk trip- runs to and from practice (football usually) while my sister spent her time with one of two of her boyfriends. One boyfriend who was for her- younger, in a band, good looking- and the other she met while she was single and desperate and lonely, old. Nearly our fathers age, who also carts around the kids for her.
Bear used to take my sister's kids to Disneyland every year or so. Spent thousands and thousands of dollars on them.
Couldn't be bothered to lend me 100$ to pay for books or college fees. Not even to keep me from having to withdraw from college due to financial problems. Not keep, borrow.
What I knew then and know now is that he was and always will be a child. He just was never parented into being a responsible man. Perhaps he was too stubborn to be, (very true) and raising teenagers was a skill-set his parents lacked, for all their positive attributes, and Bear was as willful as they come and needed a skillful parent.
He was at all four of my sister's children's births. I remember. I was there too. No matter how my relationship with my sister was at the time. I showed up. And held the video camera for her. And she fixed her hair and directed me. Yes. While giving birth. She may be a complete narcissist but you got to admit, that's pretty tough, directing her own birth video!
I let my father know that I gave birth on the phone. He didn't come. I had an extended hospital stay due to minor complications. Never came. I had several phone calls over the succeeding months. Nothing.
One time, I told him that he was choosing to show up for my sister and not me and that I was done waiting and I would not be there at his deathbed and he would only be to blame for that.
Of course, I obviously didn't mean it. I mean, I did but when he started expressing a wish to come see my daughter and hang out with her, she was about eight months and there was no family to speak of other than me. She has no father or grandparents or any family for that matter from her bio paternal side. Her biological father has forbidden all contact. And the fact that his family, particularly his parents agreed speaks volumes to me and, while it's sad for her, I gladly wash my hands of the lot. With a clean conscious, as I did everything in my power to be accommodating and welcoming to him and them. She will have her own issues when she gets older and I fear that day. But it's beyond my control. And one less thing to have to stress over on a daily basis.
My mother is a very mentally ill woman who is too manipulative and twisted to be around. I tried having contact with her, anyway, after I gave birth. It quickly escalated and became painfully obvious that I can't be Mother to a new baby and to my mother, as was expected, much to my enraged mother. I'll never forget the way she grinded her teeth at the Diner where we went out for lunch after I tried to set some boundaries around our relationship.
I was eight months pregnant, had to move into a homeless shelter because I had become too sick with the pregnancy to make enough money to pull rent and had no where to turn.
She came once during my first trimester. I was too sick to get out of bed without puking and had yet to lose my apartment I was sharing. She had brought some boxes I had stored at her house, none containing the things I asked for, many of the items broken beyond repair. She asked me to bring the boxes into the house and I did, gagging and all, demanded I thank her at least three separate times, asked me to feed her. She then took a nap, woke up and left rather angry because I didn't shower her with attention and gratitude. I wasn't rude. I acted as grateful as I could manage, but I didn't entertain her properly. I was pregnant, nauseous, and listless a mattress on the floor.
When we were at the diner, I was about eight months pregnant, feeling a little better, working again, even if it was part-time since that's all I could manage. She began telling me how I have been so wrong to her, and as her daughter, I should be taking care of her and so on. I was pregnant with a potentially fatherless child, living in a homeless shelter, trying to get everything set up so I could be ready to have a baby on my own, ready to move into our own place, trying to get a car again, a crib, furniture, baby items, and all of it. I just looked into that righteously angry face of hers, the women who is responsible for so much suffering in my life that I work so hard to overcome, the woman I continued to tolerate, forgive, make excuses for, and take care of, and I just told her that we just have different ideas of what an adult parent-child relationship should look like. That was the most mature, succinct way to put it. I did not say so much that could be said. I just laid an obvious, firm but gentle boundary that stated that I will not be available to mother her. The face she made- denture teeth grinding against each other, clenched, tense. Same face she used to make when I was a child- that would signify she was about to attack me. The face of rage. I grew up terrified of that incredibly violent and incomprehensible behavior. Often she would beat us, my older sister and I, without provocation. Just because the personality she had switched to felt like it. Absolute terror growing up. I still feel warped with the PTSD, the mind numbing anxiety that I live with because of it.
So, no. No grandmothers for Bella.
I never really knew my father. My father received visitation rights when I was about four. I spent my summers with his parents. His parents tried to get him to show interest in his two daughters during the summer visits. If he showed any interest at all it was with my sister over me. He knew her from infancy on. My mother ran away from my father when she was pregnant with me. He saw me when I was about four for the first time. He knew I was born because the child support amount went up. Throughout my life, it has punctuated with this deep, agonizing feeling to be wanted and loved.
What I know is that my father didn't know how to love. He's a child. But, he did and does love me (and my sisters- yes, there's a third- who didn't even get the benefit of this last year). He's just selfish and self-centered and immature and irresponsible. But he is my father. And he does love me.
That's not why I let him in the door this last year. It had nothing to do with me. My daughter had no family to speak of, here was my father, making an effort to know her and show up, appeared to be showing up fairly consistently and I made the decision that it was in her best interests to allow her grandfather the opportunity to know her. It was something she would benefit from. I tried to keep my own feelings about my father in check- not so much anger- but the part of me that was a little girl wanting her daddy to just want to know her too.
He was a playful dad, the few memories I do have of him. Always with a beer, and strong, beefy, carpenter arms. Chatting with a friend.
When I was real young it was like pulling teeth, trying to get him to take me for a night or two during the summer I spent at his parents.
My grandpa. I loved my grandpa. I adored him. He was big and strong and responsible. A great big iconic man. With button up shirts and white blonde hair. Freckles and a wide smile. Grinning into the sun, flipping burgers, with a deep belly laugh. I will never forget the feel of pressing up against his warm, wide chest and knowing this strong, smart, capable man was my grandpa whom loved me. To my grave, I will cherish those memories.
Perhaps, in honor of my grandpa, I gave my daughter the opportunity.
I am crying now thinking about it, about him.
Shortly after I turned nine my grandpa had his first stroke. He was never that man again. He had a stroke every year after until he spent his last month in diapers at a hospital, out of his mind, dieing of lung cancer. His class ring hung on his thin finger, like a loose gold tire, a reminder of the man he once was. An engineer from Lockheed. A whole life, gone. He didn't recognize his own children, let alone me. But I was the last of the grandkids that had memories of him, warm ones where he was that looming, booming giant of a man, against a California summer backdrop. There were many grandkids after me but none had grandpa in their hearts and minds like I did. My older sister was more closely bonded to grandma- and would continue to be closest to her, maybe even closer to grandma than grandma was to her own daughters.
Grandpa loved all his grandchildren, mind you, but, by the time the kids were old enough to develop a memorable relationship with him, he was mentally gone.
My daughter calls my father by his name (to her) "gam-pa", knows him and loves crawling all over him. She loves grabbing his cane and pounding on the floor like he showed her, or sitting in his lap while he sits in his Lincoln navigator, trying to push the horn, flipping or pushing all the available buttons and crawling all over the front seat, and sitting on his lap as he cruises down the Boardwalk in his little disability scooter. She has a bond with him. She has a Grandpa.
And all my sister's kids have a grandpa.
And I saw him yesterday, waiting for my sister's two kids, one at a football practice, the other at cheerleading practice. His stomach has become distended, rapidly, over the last month or two. To a size I have never seen before. He had been eating too many sweet lately- and being diabetic- on top of Hep C post inferion- not a good decision. But this- this was something else. His skin was yellow and gray. He can't sleep. He has new strange sharp pains.
It won't be long now.
He won't go get his liver blood test. No money for gas, he says. Meanwhile, my sister is sending him to the grave. Not once has she offered him gas money as he carts her children around- while she's out with her boyfriend -the younger one. Not working, mind you. just... y'know.... whatever it is she does with the 2,000-3,000 in child support for her 4 kids. They don't see that money, and it doesn't go to rent because she doesn't have to pay rent. Maybe I'm being too harsh. It's got to be difficult raising three boys and one girl on your own. Food is probably expensive. The child support is supposedly inconsistent. But those kids live in a house that should be condemned, wear the dirtiest, hole-y-est clothes. Her son showed up with grandpa one time with shoes that had soles worn all the way through- you could see half the bottom of his sock! Another wore flip flops so old they broke while at the Boardwalk. Funny thing, when next they showed up they had new shoes, but Grandpa bought them. I made it an issue, but not for him to take care of it. But, while I encourage him to set limits with my sister, because she is the type that will take until you are dead, he is his own man and makes his own decisions. He's not a meek man. He will do whatever he feels like doing. It's just hard watching my sister manipulate and use him like that. It's literally killing him.
I didn't realize it's been over a year since he started showing up until I realized his birthday was coming up again. Last year I took him out for a steak at the Diner, ironically the same Diner I had the fight with my mother a year prior. I told him the meal was free, like at Denny's because he didn't like me spending money on him and loves getting free stuff like that. Makes him feel special. He was thrilled, talked about that meal throughout the year. Wanted to go again but suspected the truth and made me tell him.
We still have plans to go, one way or another.
I didn't expect to see him finally turn a corner in his life during this last year, but he has.
I didn't expect my daughter to have a Grandpa, but she does, and I never thought I'd have a Dad too, but I do. Warts, wounds, history and all.
She calls her Gam-pa on her pretend phone, squeals when she sees him, climbs into his arms.
He's like a big kid, the perfect child companion. She loves his visits.
And now, the end we all knew was coming has started.
He's been terrified of it; has seen friends die of it, researched it, knows what's coming. Liver failure is an ugly, painful, horrible way to go. He's talked about it a lot over the last four/five years. Kind of stopped perseverating on it this last year. I know he hasn't forgot but maybe he was trying to forgot- or since the last dose of inferion was received and he was given an all clear, was hoping that was the end of it.
Stoic as he is, he's not "scared", oh no. But I know he is. It's why he put off getting an updated blood test for his liver/hep c levels.
I just got a Dad and now I'm going to lose him.
Not everyone is born from a force of nature. I don't feel like rebellion's daughter. I feel like my sister is,but not me. Life pounded me into stronger, wiser stuff, but I don't feel willful. I don't know. People have described me that way. Headstrong. I don't know if I believe them. I am also very easygoing and thoughtful. Too accommodating at times. My mother and sister- and even my father have given me that twist- the truncation of my own needs over others.
Coming from an immediate family that can not consider the needs of anyone but themselves, I say that's not such a bad thing, just needs balance.
In the end, this last year has allowed me to forgive my father.
I look into exhausted eyes and shaken skin
and say
you used your extra year well, Dad.
May it be a peaceful process
this inevitable letting go
that we are all headed toward
this shedding
and changing
into that energy
that hums along
neither sympathetic nor cruel
just bearing witness to itself
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