I picked out a Father’s Day card for my dad today. It’s hard to pick out a card for a father who has let you down due to things that were within his control, and also out of his control. I stood there in Target, scanning all of the Father’s Day cards, feeling my heart breaking and wanting to cry as I quickly passed over the ones about Daddy’s little girl and Daddy being a hero and this and that.
It took me almost a half an hour to find a card that still is half ass at describing the relationship I have with my father.
Hi. I’m that stereotypical daddyless girl from a broken home, the daddyless girl I pray to god my daughter never winds up having to be.
My parents split when I was six. Smart decision, given the circumstances, but that doesn’t make my pretty much fatherless existence any easier to cope with. I talk to my father perhaps six times a year, and see him maybe half that. It isn’t for lack of trying on my part. I can tell you stories of the summer of 2002, when I was dealing with a lot and tried for two months straight to get a hold of him. I called every single day, and wrote every week. Or how about the winter of 2004, when I wanted to make sure he was even still ALIVE, and made the trip down to Philly to pound his apartment door down until he answered. At that point it had been six years since I had seen him, and I barely recognized him. Scratch that. I didn’t recognize him at all. I apologized to the man in the bathrobe for disturbing him, and started to walk away when he spoke, and I remembered his voice and turned back.
He promises to call. To write. To send cards. He never does. I dutifully send cards for the holidays, and update letters and photos every month or two. If I go down in person, and manage to catch him when he’s home and awake, then he acts as if nothing is wrong, apologizes for not calling or writing (“I meant to”, “I got sidetracked”, “I forgot”, “I never got around to picking up stamps” ), and talks my ear off for the next few hours, since obviously there’s a lot of catching up to do.
And then it’s the broken promises, all over again. To call. To write. To send cards.
Last year he had the nerve to get upset and act hurt because I forgot to send him a Father’s Day card.
I haven’t received a card from him in over five years…
I’m going to be twenty-four in exactly one month. You’d think that by now I wouldn’t let this bother me the way that it sometimes does. You’d think I’d finally understand, that I’d get it, and just surrender to what’s meant to be, for whatever reason, and refuse to dwell and insist on moving on.
But it isn’t that easy. It isn’t.
I envy Alyssa, for the beautiful relationship she has with Daniel. When she’s older and understands, I’m going to tell her to be thankful every single day of her life for her father and the fact that he is in her life and with her, and to tell him she loves him all of the time. It’s the least she can do. Especially since I always tell my dad that I love him, and I don’t have him with me like she does Dan.
Blech. I’m sorry for the late night ramblings about such a mopey subject, but I’m sitting here addressing the Father’s Day card that I finally chose for my father, and everything came bubbling up.
P.S. The Win a momAgenda contest is now closed. A winner will be chosen and announced on Tuesday afternoon.
Wow…I feel sorry that you’ve had to deal with this kind of father-daughter relationship throughout the years. It actually makes me take a step back and look at my life and my relationship with my father.
I appreciate all he has done for me and being there when I needed him (emotionally & financially). Him being there for every bad dream, sickness, or other hiccup in my life. The only thing I can never forget is the years of physical abuse to my sisters, mother, and myself when we were younger. That I can’t forget, but now can forgive.
It’s crazy when you come across a topic and then years of memories come through like an open floodgate.
*hug*
I’m sorry about your difficult relationship with your father. I’ve never been in your position, but I imagine it must be really hard.
Aw Jenn, you deserve a great big e-hug. I can’t say I understand what you’re going through, but I do know what it’s like to be fatherless and to have your family fall apart because of it.
My father committed suicide, the day after father’s day, almost 8 years ago. Since then, my family has slowly deteriorated and I don’t even speak to my mother or sisters anymore. I can’t say that my situation is better or worse than yours – there’s really no way to compare – but I do feel for you. I really do. <3
Aww that is so sad. I mean I know that thousands of girls go through this, but thank god for the lucky little girls like ours that have a better dad who is there for them.
I was complaining about my mom on an occasion when she wasn’t emotionally there for me. My aunt told me that I was an adult and that I needed to get to the place where I just wasn’t expecting anything from her. Yeah, it hurts that I don’t have someone to talk about the things a mother and daughter talk about together, but by not expecting anything from her and not even telling her things it doesn’t weigh on me emotionally anymore.
Maybe if you don’t expect anything from him and believe that he’s just not mentally/physically/emotionally capable of giving it to you he’ll surprise you one day.
My husband’s father wasn’t very involved in his life either. He rarely sent child support or even birthday cards. Now that my husband is older though, my father-in-law realized that he messed up. He calls more now and he has apologized to my hubby over and over. It’s really sad…
i can totally feel you. i never had a good relationship with my mother and for how much i try to get over it and love her for the person she is and try to accept the situation, i am NEVER over it, i always find myself suffering over what i missed, it ain’t easy because it’s something we will NEVER have back, the relationship with our parents is unique, we wont have new chances with new parents, i think it’s normal that it still hurts now that we are 24 or even older, even if i’d though it would have been better through time- we are still so young and fragile in the end.
I am sorry Jenn. I know you can’t change the past, but at least you made an effort in your part.
Hey, my dad was a dilaudid junkie (intravenous opiate addict) for 20+ years. I cannot count the fucked up things he has done to me because of his drug addiction. But, right now, at his moment, my father and I have a great relationship. He was part of the reason I stopped doing heroin. You have to forgive and forget. You have to. Or you will never be fulfilled as an entity.