Dear Dad in Glowing world

My therapist Shannon agrees with me that you and I have a pretty neat relationship. She thinks that writing you this letter will be a good exercise for me, because she wants us to shine up our relationship even more. She says we’re really close to being really close, and that I should write down lots of lovely memories about you, and then mention one moment in particular that needs some healing. She thinks that if we fix that one thing, we’ll be in really good shape.

I think the earliest memory I have of you is that your bible was always on the table, ready for you to read in the morning. You said you read it every day, and I was amazed at what a fast reader you would have to be to do that. There were a few days when I tried starting at Genisis 1:1 and I couldn’t even get through all of that first book in one day.

Sometimes I’d wake up to you grinding your coffee beans in the morning, and I’d wrap myself up in my little pink blanket and hang out with you, even though it was so early and my eyes would barely open. I’d watch the garbage truck pick up the garbage cans, and that seemed like magic. I knew I’d miss you during the day, so these little moments in the morning were special.

I was always excited when you’d come home from work, because I got to run up and hug you. You were so tall. Mom had to deal with us being kids all day, but you got to be just fun.

I remember climbing on your back while you read to Joseph and I every night. Joseph and I got to trade off which books you would read, and there was the Big Red Strawberry, Wacky Wednesday, Pinnochio, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe series multiple times, and the Redwall series. You were really good at the voices. I love it that you encouraged us to read and be smart, and showed us that reading is fun.

Even spankings are an oddly sweet memory. You didn’t want to. You spent a lot of time telling me how much you loved me, and that you didn’t want to hurt me. The purpose was never to hurt me. You had said that if I did the whatever-it-was one more time, that you’d spank me. I did it again, and now you had to honor your word. You wanted me to be able to trust what you said. I remember we both cried. Me because it did actually hurt, and you because you hated doing it. While I don’t think that spanking is particularly useful, all of the reassuring and kindness you did surrounding it was nice and felt more like the real you.

I know I’ve appreciated you for this before, but when you explained the oral surgery to me with the model of my mouth made of tall drinking glasses for the front teeth small glasses for the molars, and the boot-shaped mugs showing that there were teeth that were blocking the other ones from coming in, that was really cool. It helped me understand why I needed the surgery, and so I felt less scared and more informed.

I liked it in the Apple Blossom Parade when you rode with me in the firetruck that I won at age seven. Mom and Joseph rode on top of it because they weren’t scared of being up so high. You were in the cab next to me, and bumped the horn when we drove past the judges. The firemen were nice, but it would have been scary without you there.

I love the memory of us going around to all the different music stores playing the Tribal Drums cassette tape on all the different stereos so that I could find the best one for my budget. We were so cool. You’d check in with me to see if I agreed that this one sounded better than that one, or that the features of one outweighed the sound quality of another one. We decided that getting the one that could play the radio, cassette tapes and CDs and had pretty good sound was better than the one that couldn’t do all that but had a remote control.

I loved it that you would take off work to come do school trips with me, like the Mission trip in fourth grade. I got to make tortillas with you. That one girl Lani touched her eye after cutting the jalapeno and that is still kinda funny. You were proud of me that I suggested that people would use flower petals to dye fabrics, when all the other kids could think of that they would use was mud. You got in the dirt and made Adobe with me.

I liked helping you set up sound at church. I liked the different colors of the mics, and was proud when I could carry two mic stands at the same time. We made up our own terminology for the different kinds. The one with the boom on it we called the Pharaoh’s hat, because that’s what it looked like. You taught me how to roll up the cords.

You taught me how to use a hammer, a drill, a screwdriver and the difference between Phillips and Standard, and how to saw the end off of a Christmas tree. When I was playing in the garage, you’d always holler “I’m gonna make some noise!” before you’d use the table saw, because you didn’t want to scare me.

You helped me get the Papa San chair home. I was so proud of that thing. I thought I was living the high life. I spent almost the entire summer of 6th grade sitting in it, listening to the radio.

I never felt pressure that I had to look a certain way. You said that I didn’t need makeup, and I was already beautiful. Thank you for that.

Things got rougher for a while. Even when I was rude to you, you were kind. You’d ask how my day was and dinner. I didn’t want to talk about it, but you were always there. You didn’t pressure me to have certain grades in school, you just wanted me to turn in all the assignments. You went to work every day. I was never worried about having enough clothes or toys or food or anything. I didn’t realize until later why we had pancakes and spaghetti so often. I loved having “breakfast for dinner.”

You’d always let me have one of the chicken drumsticks whenever we got one of those chickens. When there was only one hot dog left and both Joseph and I wanted it, one of us would cut it in half, and the other one would get to pick which half they wanted. This way, we would make it fair.

We got to have pizza and a movie every Friday. Lots of times with root beer and ice cream. We’d rent the 5 movies for 5 days for 5 dollars and spend forever in the video store picking them out.

When I said I didn’t want to go to church anymore because I didn’t believe in god anymore, you came to respect it fairly quickly. You would rather I be real than lukewarm. You think there are too many fake Christians out there, and you appreciated that I wasn’t going to go along something that I didn’t believe in.

You drove me to and from swing dancing every Friday for years. That’s a big deal. Even though you’d gotten up early, you’d let me stay to the end of the dance. When I didn’t want you to come inside, you’d wait outside in the car for me, even when the dance went late. I’m not sure where I’d be right now without dancing, and you were a big part in letting me have something fun and positive to look forward to every week. Thank you for doing that.

You taught me how to drive. You were patient, and let me start out really slow in a big parking lot. You practiced with me. You were encouraging and supportive, and I got a new skill.

I loved car shopping with you. We were ruthless. We were going to get the best deal, and make sure that the Carfax was good, the title was clean, the oil had been changed recently, the air pressure and tire pressure were good, and the little treads on the outsides of the tires were still there. You went with me to buy the car from the lesbian woman who would turn out to be my cooking instructor later. You drove her to the winery after we bought the car, because she hadn’t made plans for how to leave the parking lot if we actually bought it. I got to feel proud that we were able to solve that problem for her.

You taught me how to change my own oil. I don’t know that I could do it all by myself because I haven’t done it again since, but I like it that you wanted me to know how to do it.

You helped me move. You moved me out of the house into Greg’s, and then into Gwen’s house even though I’d be rooming with Ian and we weren’t married, you helped me move to the townhouse, and to Napa, and to West Sacramento. Five moves. Geez. That’s a bunch. That’s a lot of work.

You learned swing dancing with me. The wedding was just an excuse, you wanted to spend time with me and learn how to dance because it’s fun. I had a blast dancing with you at Ellington, and at the wedding. It was fun to show off. We walked down the aisle together to “Springtime” by Vivaldi and “Pretty Woman,” by Roy Orbison. You didn’t want me to feel like property that you were giving away, but you wanted to be there for me in that moment, and you wanted me to be happy. You were happy for me. I like it that you still have an album of photos from the wedding on Facebook, even though I took them all off my page. I like showing people the photo of us dancing together. “This is me and my dad!”

When I told you that I’m bisexual, you just said that you loved me. I wanted you to know before I got married, for some reason that was important to me. That was a scary moment for me, and you were supportive, kind, and reassuring. As requested, you didn’t tell mom.

You helped me with all those chairs at the wedding. I am sorry that I didn’t think that detail through. I was tired, and you lugged all 100 of those wooden chairs into the U-haul, and drove them back to the rental company the next day.

I like talking to you about all kinds of stuff. We like a lot of the same weird movies and you don’t let the R rating get in your way. You let me show you Amelie and Fight Club, and a bunch of others. You’ve gone to art museums, concerts, and festivals with me. You went up to the front of the Michael Franti concert with me, and took that crazy photo with thousands of people behind us. We’ve seen Cake, Weird Al, and Ani Difranco together. We’ve had Indian food, sushi, French, and Thai food. We went to Zazie and Stanza together. BATS improv Theater several times. You went on that weird vacation I planned where we ended up in the smoking room at the hotel. You visited that college campus with me in San Francisco and we harmonized with the car alarm for a long time and were almost disappointed when it stopped.

I’ve shared poems with you and talked about my teacher Richard Speakes. You’ve always shown interest in what I’m up to, and the things that matter to me.

I’m supposed to write down the part that’s going to be rougher. This isn’t going to be fun, I can already feel it. My therapist feels like this person that I’ve described to her called my dad is very loving and that we’re really close to having a relationship that’s like a shiny new car. There’s a dent in our car right now, though. Not a big one, but it’s there.

Remember how you told me that I’m the reason why you stayed? That when you were moving Joesph’s girlfriend and her mom to Louisiana, you thought about just staying there and not coming back? You said that you knew mom would move up to Redding with her parents, and that I would just die up there, and that you couldn’t do that to me. Shannon says that I could have gone my whole life without you telling me that. She thinks that puts blame on me for choices that you’ve made. I told her that I try not to think about that conversation very much, and that I feel like the intent behind you telling me that was that you wanted to say how much you love me. Shannon still thought it was incredibly unfair of you to put that on me, and that I should write down tons of wonderful memories I have with you and then kinda nail you on this one thing. She thinks that while she is glad that you stayed and yes things would have been terrible for me up in Redding, that by telling me that you were thinking of leaving it contributes to me feel like I’m not “enough.” Textbook, Stuart Smalley stuff. She is right, I didn’t understand why you would take Joseph and abandon me. I do know why, because you’d already be in Louisiana and you could just stay there. But can you see how that might color how I feel about myself a little bit?

Shannon doesn’t think you actually would have left. She thinks that I could use an apology, and some reassurance though. This will give me closure on that moment, and I’ll be able to work on other tougher stuff.

I don’t know what the right answer is for you and mom. Right now you are friends, and you’ve built this life together, she’s mothered children for you, and there are a lot of institutional reasons why it makes sense to stay. It’s in a holding pattern. Whether you choose to try to make that relationship closer or to keep doing what you’re doing is up to you.

Shannon’s more concerned about us. We haven’t talked a ton about mom yet, but it sounds like it’s going to be a bit rough. Mom loves me because of the role that I am in her life: her daughter. I feel like you love me because you appreciate me for who I am. Before Shannon delves more into the complexity of mom and I, she wanted to have me bond with you a little more. This letter is part “thank you,” and part opportunity for you to fix that one thing. That as a parent it makes sense that you would make certain sacrifices, but that the blame for you staying doesn’t get to be put on me.

I am thankful that I had as stable of a childhood as I did. I’m thankful that you stayed, and that I got to have my dad in the picture through high school and adulthood. I’m also thankful that we can have real conversations.

I love you very much and feel lucky that you’re my dad. Thank you so much for all the kindness and thousand tiny moments when you were there for me. Even when it was hard. Even when you went to that job you hated and had to see the world through “piss-colored glasses” because the glasses were literally yellow. You’ve been steadfast, and always made me feel important and loved. I think of you often, and always love when we get to spend time together and hang out.

I love you.

Love,

Karen

Last updated September 02, 2018