Stuck Spaces: Daddy Issues

Or, how I learned to love my dad for who he was

Trigger Warning: I discuss abandonment, which may be triggering for some people.

Dearest Stucksters,

Today is Father’s Day, and each year as this day begins, I feel that familiar clench in my gut. Father’s Day. That day we celebrate fathers of all types, and I take some time to remember my dad. He was in my life like a blazing comet, and then he was gone.

He didn’t die young. He was in my life for five whole years, and I have a few distinct memories of him, all of which I hold onto like precious jewels My parents split up around the time I turned four or five, the reasons for which are a bit murky. I only ever heard my mom’s side of the story, which I always took with a grain of salt. She tended to be dramatic, and the story she told me was no less full of drama and pathos, without any sort of inkling she had anything to do with it. Things always happened to her, and it was always someone else’s fault. Self-reflection was not in my mother’s vocabulary. But to be fair, I doubt it was for most people in the 1970s.

My dad came once, after they split up, to pick me up after school, and then I didn’t hear from him again until I was over 21. I don’t remember missing him, but I know my mom said I cried in first grade because I was the only student in the class whose parents were divorced, and I had no dad to be there for me. I don’t remember that at all, but I will take her word for it. School was overwhelming enough for me, a child who had never been to preschool, and had spent most of my first five years around adults, so the loss of one adult from that pack didn’t feel like much.

Years later, all grown up and married with children, I began therapy. Too much had happened in my childhood, and it began spilling into my daily life. My therapist, who I credit for literally saving my life, was a cross between a Zen Master and an exasperated relative. He was Japanese, and although we grew up literally worlds apart, we had an innate understanding of each other. He remained flabbergasted that I survived my childhood and functioning relatively well as an adult. I gave full credit to my grandmother for my “normalcy” and kept on going to therapy sessions.

He prodded me into group therapy (I even wince as I write this), swearing it would do me good. I guess maybe it did. At the time, it was mostly irritating. I prefer one on one to group anything, so I blocked most of it out, except for one instance. When I mentioned my dad disappearing, one woman looked at me sternly and said, “It’s okay to be angry at your dad for abandoning you.” And I, without skipping a beat, gave my tried-and-true answer: “I can’t miss what I never had.”

It was true. I honestly never got mad at my dad for leaving. Growing up with my mom, I sort of wondered how he even stayed married to her for twenty years. All four of us children at one point or another, fled her presence. Fled. Not moved out, as adults normally do. I came the closest, sort of calmly moving out, hearing her hysterically threatening to call the police to come get me back as I drove off in the moving truck. I was over 18, and knew it was not going to happen, but I still flinched any time I saw a police car for a very long time.

We all fled because she was erratic,, a binge alcoholic and prone to daily histrionics. Ironically, she had always wanted a family like the Waltons, where we lived together and loved each other, but that was never going to happen in this lifetime. Into adulthood all four of us fled to our safe and quiet corners, and there we stay to this day.

My dad called me once, after I was married, and tried to be my dad over the phone. He told me he was proud of me, and I remember thinking (but not saying),“But you left me alone with HER! How could you do that?!” roaring in my head over my polite responses. I hung up, and then wrote him a letter asking him to never contact me again. And he didn’t, despite my sort of hidden hope that he would fight for me now that he had spoken to me, overcoming over my objections.

Having been a late-in-life baby for my parents, both of them died within a year of each other when I was in my early thirties. I sometimes envy people my age who still have their parents, but I know it wouldn’t have worked well in my case. My parents had a hard time with life, and I sense they were relieved when it was over. My mom definitely was, and I was with her when she passed way. Relief is mostly what I felt for the first decade of my life after they died.

Indeed, it’s almost thirty years after they are gone and now I find myself missing what I had, however brief. I am grateful I have a few memories, and thanks to my grandmother’s modeling, I too look at mostly the positives of my wild and chaotic childhood.

Within the past five years, I have done loads of self-work, because the armor I strapped on as a child has finally been shedding. I am safe and cared for, and can really work to reconcile with the vulnerable child underneath. My dad did abandon us, I can clearly say. For years, I had hoped he would come rescue me, or at least send a postcard. Yet I can clearly see the wreckage of my parents’ divorce from my vantage point in life now. It resonates to this day. It is reflected in my siblings and myself, the way I parent, and the way I view the world. I sincerely doubt life would have been any better had my dad rescued me. He and my mom were apparently very much alike, and that reason right there was the glue to their marriage.

As for myself, my dad has given me great gifts from beyond the grave. I discovered he actually lived in the place I live now. He lived there during the mystery years where he had no contact with anyone. His voice is what I heard his voice telling me to move to the same place as I was about to move somewhere else. I followed his voice there (still not completely sure why. I just knew if I heard my dad’s voice in my head, it must be important. He seemingly guided me through these next nine magical years since then.

In that time, my younger son delved into his ancestry, and discovered a younger brother I never knew I had. I always wanted a younger sibling, and after having talked and met, I now have one I cherish. My dad abandoned him as well. Held him in the hospital and then disappeared again. A pattern my dad would continue. No more siblings that I know of, but multiple marriages. The most appreciated gift is that my brother and I have so much more in common than I ever did with my older siblings. He too is the youngest in his family, and we share quirky characteristics and interests, as well as our funky sense of humor. He’s been scarred by his own life, colored by my dad’s abandonment, and yet we found each other thanks to the power of the internet.

What gifts my dad has given me. He brought me to the place I needed to be (for so many reasons too many to list here), helped me find my brother, gave me a sense of self via my heritage (proud of both my mother and father’s ancestry), and in a way, tried to make up to me the dad he could never be in real life.

And now I miss him. It’s taken me decades. So many questions I would ask him, so many things I want to know. I’d love to hear his side of the story of his marriage to my mom, how he viewed his life, and what his memories held for him. That moment in group therapy is seared into my memory, and I think my answer would have changed.

Oddly, even though he has been gone for so many years, I am still not angry. I have a clearer picture of what his life was like in those mystery years, and his trajectory. Did he abandon me? And my little brother? Yes, he did. He absolutely did. And I can be angry about the wasted years or his poor decision-making skills, but instead I choose to remember my dad for what he has given me since then. A magical place to live, a younger brother, and a sense of connection. I may not know what it’s like to be brought up by a male parent, but I have appreciation for fathers in general.

So Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. And to whatever fatherhood looks like for all of us. If yours is alive, and if you’re not estranged, please give him a call or a hug. For those of us who can’t, and wish we could, hug yourself a little tighter today. We made it to another Father’s Day, and that is absolutely something to be celebrated.

Dad & me, way back in the 1960s

Travel & Book Corner

Not much to report this week, so will skip and be back next Sunday with new entries.

Fellow Stucksters, thank you for reading my Substack, as always. With the internet filled with a bajillion photos, memes, articles and more, I truly appreciate your taking the time to read my weekly entries. You make a difference in my world.