Orphan. in Phoenix

I have no parent now. My dad died early Saturday morning. I got the call from my sister at about 6pm Saturday night. Because, you know, she had to call everyone else first and also make a point of telling me that everyone else already knew. I mean, okay, fine, she called her kids first, whatever. She’s a hateful, miserable old bitch and I honestly don’t think I will bat an eye when it’s her turn to go.

Oh, I’m so angry. I know my anger is rooted in pain, but right now, I’m just so pissed off. I’m pissed off at all of the people in my life who separated me from my parents in some way. I’m pissed off at myself for moving away, for not being able to be there, to help care for him in the last few years. I’m pissed off at him for not moving here, for moving to Florida instead, for dying in fucking Florida he hated fucking Florida. (deep breath)

I’m angry at my sister for being who she is, a hateful racist bigot who throws the n-word around like candy and thinks that Donald Trump hung the fucking moon. I’m angry at my dad for voting for him and angry at myself for being happy that he won’t get the chance to vote for him again.

I’m angry at the conundrum that was my father. He was such a good man. He cared for everyone, nursed his mother right to her death, cared for my mother for years and years even when she didn’t deserve it, cutting her food for her, helping her get around so she didn’t fall on her face (again, again), tying her shoes, everything. He was always there when any of us needed him. He and my mom gave my sister so much over the years, from groceries when she couldn’t afford them to co-signing loans for her and her husband to buy a car or a house. Have a car problem? Dad’ll come have a look. Oh no, my furnace isn’t working, what should I do? Call dad, he’ll fix it and teach us how to fix it ourselves the next time the thermal coupler goes out. My drains are all clogged, nothing is moving, don’t worry, dad will crawl under the house and find a solution (and what a ridiculous solution it was, but it worked and that’s what my dad would always call n-word-rigging with a chuckle) and then he’ll get washed up and have dinner and play with the kids until it’s time for him to go back home. He was the guy who had plenty but didn’t throw it around but once in awhile. A couple of years, it was a check for $500, for birthday and Christmas, he’d say. Last year, it was… I don’t even remember how much. A lot. For my son’s new, ridiculously expensive saxophone for college. Just, “How much does he still need? Okay, here it is.” Like no big deal. He told me more than once that he might not agree with me but I’m his daughter and he’ll always love me and have my back. And he did, he did, always. And I wish I’d asked for more and I don’t mean that to sound selfish but I just got to a point in life where I thought he’d lived through enough and he didn’t still need one of his kids begging at his feet for all that he had worked so hard for. I wish I’d asked because, in the asking, I’d have been talking to him. But I couldn’t, for so long I just couldn’t ask him for any more help because he’d already given me so much. But, if I’d reached out more, if I’d asked for more, I’d have talked to him more, we’d have been more involved in each other’s lives, and…

I didn’t even call him for Thanksgiving.

The last time I talked to him was October 18th, his birthday. He didn’t call me for my birthday in November, we didn’t talk for Thanksgiving… Almost 2 months, we didn’t talk, and now he’s gone and we’ll never talk again.

And the last time I saw him was so awkward. It was a short visit, interrupted by my sister who I hadn’t talked to prior to that for more than 7 years. Awkward cordiality ensued. My dad looked horrible, sounded horrible, so weak and frail and not my big, strong dad who could repair cars and crawl under houses, no, almost as if I was visiting with a stranger, no my dad at all. I had my little dude with me and the poor thing just didn’t seem to know how to act. Luckily, my sister’s husband came along and took him on a ride around the campground (where my sister and her husband live and work in the summers). I could see how awkward little guy was. He didn’t get to know my dad as much as my two older kids did. We moved away right after he turned 5, and he doesn’t even remember much from before we lived here. He’s seen my dad a total of maybe 4 times in 7 years, and always for a short time, a few hours. And there my dad sat, frail and weak, confused and muttering, hands and voice shaking like leaves in the wind.

And I knew, and have said since, that that day was the last time I was going to see my dad alive. I’ve looked back on that day over and over again and I feel disappointed in myself because I was also awkward and weird and didn’t know exactly what to say or how to act. I felt as if I was sitting with strangers and not my father and sister. My sister is a horrible asshole and most definitely a stranger to me, and this man is not my strong father who can put new brakes on my car.

I once told my dad that he is my hero. That he can do all of the wrong and still be right. Oh, how we argued about politics. And yet, I couldn’t unsee him as the good man who always did his best to care for the people he cared about. I’m still angry at him for saying to me, “If a woman doesn’t want to get pregnant, she should keep her legs together.” I’m still angry at him for being a racist and a bigot. For not speaking to me for months, for not being able to look me in the eye when, as a teen, it came out (I didn’t come out willingly, it was forced by an incident at school) that I was bisexual, that I had a girlfriend. You see, my sister didn’t become what she is in some inexplicable way. It’s how we were raised. She just became religious about it where there was no religion in our childhood home, only unjustified hate, racism, bigotry, violence, and abuse. Because, at the end of the day, my parents were both pretty fucking abusive. (You can read what I think of often as my origin story here.) My mom was the ringleader and my dad went along. He never, to my knowledge, tried to stop her. Occasionally, he participated in the physical abuse.

I’m sad, I’m angry, and I’m relieved. I don’t have to struggle with this conundrum anymore. I don’t have to justify my love for my father to myself anymore. I do love him. But I also do not love him and do not forgive him. And that is okay. I understand that people do the best they can with what they have to work with, and that’s all he did. I don’t know where or why he got the fucked up ideas he had about politics and people and morals. My grandmother, his mother, was not that way. When she found out about my girlfriend, she said, “Well, sissy, does she make you happy? That’s all that matters.” My father and my sister turned on me like rabid dogs, my sister screaming “dyke” in my face and then punching me off a chair once, and my dad not even looking at me for months, much less speaking to me. My mom just stayed the same, ridiculing and laughing at because, obviously, I was such trash that no man wanted me so I had to settle for a dyke. Oh, they loved that word. Dyke. But not my grandma, no, never her. She was never anything but loving and supportive. She was also a racist.

This leaves only my niece. No more family for me. No parents, no grandparents, no siblings. Yes, much relief. The more of them I lose, the cleaner my life feels. This is a release from the ties that have bound me to a life I’d rather just put away in a box and forget about. A miserable childhood full of abuse and depression and suicidal thoughts, a life of self-doubt, self-hatred, the constant, gnawing sense of never being good enough for anything or anyone because if I’m not even loved by the people who are supposed to love me most, as a daughter, as a sister, how could I ever be loved as a woman? How would I ever have value in the life of another person if I had none in the lives of the people who created me? How could I ever earn love from another when I didn’t even deserve the familial love that was supposed to be unconditional and freely given?

Yes, I know, I did deserve it, and it is not my fault that they didn’t give it. The emotions persist, however, the thoughts. They are not as loud as they once were and I recognize now that love is not to be earned. Love is a natural occurrence and it either happens or it doesn’t. It’s not a prize to be won in a game of chance. And children should never, ever be made to feel like they have to earn it from their family.

I’m sad and angry and hurt and relieved. I am aware that I am relieved because the choice of maintaining contact with my dad regardless of his toxicity has now been removed from me. I don’t have to maintain that anymore. I don’t have to tell myself that he’s my dad and I love him anyway. I do love him anyway, but I don’t have to rationalize it with myself anymore. I feel like he was the last toxic person, the only one I wasn’t able to remove myself. Now I don’t have to.

Now I can heal.

Last updated December 16, 2019