Family Man

As a child, this man had a soft soul. He spread his talents around with his dedication to love and hard work. This boy had a soft heart and shared his happiness as much as he could. No matter what he went through, his love kept him strong and moving forward. This man I had the privilege to call my dad.

My father went through a major change in his life at the age of twelve. He lost both his parents through suicide. I have seen the articles, I have read the story of my fathers' parents, and the anniversary of the tragedy just recently passed here in October. My grandmother, if I remember correctly, stabbed my grandfather and then took her own life. She was from Mexico and he was from Ireland, in which I never figured out how that really ever worked. Again, my father was twelve and to go through something as tragic as losing both your parents to suicide and being left alone with your brothers to survive, can break you down and ruin you.

During that time my father was actually friends with my mother and my mother tried her best to help him through this tragedy. As time passed, my father still loved unconditionally even with the gaping hole in his heart and the massive dim on his soul. So they got married and not long after that they had my sister and then 17 months later I was born.

They moved to Missouri and I remember growing up with a happy family that I couldn’t dream of ever being more perfect, aside from the deep details of my own beginning, everything eventually fell into place and we were happy.

My father always played with us, he was the world's greatest dad to us and we absolutely felt his love and affection very strongly. He cared endlessly and he showed it. Now as we grew older, my dad worked more and more, eventually owning his own business building new houses the size of mansions. Us children would go with him to his jobs and help if we could or just watch him work. My dad taught us both how to drive at the age of six and then continued over the years. We would either sit in the middle of the truck with the shifter between our knees and we got to shift the stick while he drove the truck or we sat on his lap because we couldn’t reach the peddles and steered the vehicles in the directions we were told to. Life was great!!!

Fast forward a few more years... I would have been ten about this time; we rode horses and showed them at a local saddlebred farm and my father would attend all horse shows with us and watch us ride. He occasionally showed up for our lessons and practices but he was always at the shows. Riding with Dad to the Topeka horse shows was so much fun. We would listen to great music and jam out in his new Dodge pickup. I became a daddy’s girl and wanted to grow up to be just like Daddy. I loved him with my all.

But, that one night, at the Topeka horse show, everything I knew was about to change drastically! That previous summer my mother took us to California where we had a great time, but she met someone and after we returned home, she wasn’t happy. There were many underlying circumstances that led to this. I grew up watching both my parents wither away mentally. She lied to my father and stated she had to leave town for the weekend for a firefighter convention event or maybe it was for her EMT/ Paramedic/ Hazmat event. Not sure which, so she left us with our father at the horse show, and left back for California. She never came back after that. It was about a week after the horse show that my father knew for sure she wasn’t returning. According to my mother, she ended up in the hospital almost dying from an unexpected pregnancy that supposedly was my father's. So she had an abortion, which made her stay longer. That’s when I learned what the beginning of a broken heart was. I watched my father cry and beg for her to return home to him. He was absolutely shattered to pieces.

I hated my mother for breaking my father's heart and causing him so much pain. At this time, I only knew what I saw.

That Christmas was very hard. We hung her stocking on the wall and filled it hoping she would come home for the holidays to be with us, but she never showed. As time went on, things got easier and my father decided it was time to move on. He didn’t love anyone except us, but he did sell the house we owned and packed up what little belongings we had left after the huge sale and off to California we went.

During the time we prepared to move across the country, he had court and not only did he finalize the divorce but he attained full custody of my sister and I. I was happy again and even though he never showed his pain and broken heart with us, I saw relief and happiness with us.

My father hated the Midwest and he was happy to return home back to California where he grew up and was born. It was an amazing adventure! I was happy to be daddy’s girl.

But, the longer we were there, aside from the good days, Dad had his bad days. Friday nights he would drink his brandy at home, when he wasn’t bartending at my uncle's ski resort, and listen to music and play his guitar. We saw my mother occasionally and sometimes stayed the night with her. She lived in South Lake Tahoe and we lived on top of Donner Summit, an hour away. But, life wasn’t all bad, yet...

My father started dating again... he met this one lady, who was by far not good for him. He drank more, and I feel she corrupted him. But she didn’t come around very often after we told him we didn’t approve of her. We called her Icky. But after a few months of that, everything went back to normal until my mom moved to Florida. We would go visit her in the summers which was fun. She was doing good for herself. That’s another story, but back at home with Dad, his old bookkeeper showed up to visit and she wanted a relationship with Dad. He, at the time, didn’t want one with anyone. He still wanted my mother. He drank a lot more than he had been, he became violent and they would fight all the time. He would break things and throw things. It scared me. My sister hated it, so she moved to Florida with my mother and got away. It was just me and Dad for awhile. Things got a little better for awhile. Everything mellowed out and the bookkeeper moved in with us and my dad learned to accept her. I watched him try to drink his life away.

As time moved on, I know he still tried to be a father. I was still kind of happy but mostly unhappy with the way things turned out. But I didn’t care because I loved my dad. I wanted him to be happy again. I guess things started getting bad, because he ended up shipping me off to Florida for the summer which is what I packed for, and ended up not being allowed to go back home, which I found out as soon as I got off the airplane. To be honest, I didn’t even cry; I was upset and sad, but I didn’t cry, because I had horses and other fun things in Florida. That was the end of my father for a few years.

Fast forward those 4 years... things got bad in Florida and my sister left 2 years before I did to go back to Dad. I followed after I couldn’t take it anymore. I found my dad and contacted him. I told him what was going on and that I wanted to go home. I didn’t really want to but then again I did. I wanted to get as far away from my mother as I could, but didn’t want to give up everything I had. I was torn, but I left anyway. To this day I do regret some of my decisions, but I am thankful I did what I did to be where I am at today.

Anyway, he bought me a plane ticket to go home to him, except this time it was Southern California. I was happy to be there once I was away. They helped me clean up, get new clothes, spent endless money on Blonde Hair Dye and RID treatments because I had at least a year worth of lice in my hair that was down to my butt. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I ran from my life and my mother so my father could help clean me up. I had struggled with smoking pot, and cigarettes... he helped me stop that kind of. I started that before he shipped me to my mothers, but it grew out of control while I was with her. I was a traumatized kid and just wanted to be normal again. Someday I will write about it because that is another story.

Continuing....

I felt my father's pain still. Even years after my parent's divorce. He was the biggest well known bartender in Southern California. He worked a lot. We had a broken relationship that I couldn’t repair. I just made it worse. Easter morning I remember my sister was gone, and I was home minding my own business. We lived in a pool house. Which was pretty cool at the time. Anyway, they got into a fight and next thing I heard was the computer, printer, and Easter baskets my father bought all ended up off the table and onto the floor. The Easter baskets ended in the pool. I had been used to protecting what I loved most and getting in between fights to break it up. So I ran out of my room, almost falling into the pool, and saw the mess. I saw my father sitting in a chair by the pool and my now step mother (the old bookkeeper) was crouched next to him and he was crying. I ran to him and hugged him. I didn’t let go and he didn’t fight me. She forced me back into my room so I went. A few minutes later I heard them go into their room and so I snuck out of mine back to the pool. By now, I was extremely heart broken and sad to know nothing had really changed during the time I was gone. And I never found out what that fight was about. But, as they talked in their room, I cleaned up the mess where the computer and printer were and then I cleaned every bit of candy, paper, and CD out of the pool. Which took me hours. My dad came out later and had seen me cleaning the pool silently and carefully and he just looked around and saw that I had cleaned up the other things as well. My step mother followed and went to inspect the computer and printer to make sure they weren’t destroyed. I never was given an apology or anything after that.

Things were okay for awhile until we moved up to Big Bear mountain, and I had been on a never ending probation grounding for covering up my sister's many escapes to travel to another town to see her boyfriend and helping her plot her escapes and providing her money to do so. It became my 14th birthday and I wanted to go back to my mother because I couldn’t stand life there anymore, though it really didn’t bother me at all.

After fighting with my father about it he bought me a plane ticket and shipped me away, vowing to never see or speak to me again. That was in 2009.

I broke his heart and I was a messed up kid by that time.

Now I spent years and years trying to contact my father. Spent years trying to find him. And then, Facebook was invented... I searched endlessly until one day I found him, my step mother, and my sister. I tried desperately to contact them all. I occasionally talked to my sister. But she never leaked any information about my dad to me. Then recently last year, it all happened. He contacted me back finally, accepted my friend request on Facebook, gave me his number and email, and we talked for the first time in 7 years...

The underlying realization to my story.... a broken father still loves unconditionally. I watched my father through it all. I even caused him pain as well, which I regret. But, no matter how hurt and broken he was, my father still loved and he never gave up! To this day he still fights for his loved ones. My father tried to keep his family together. But it still got torn apart.

Now that I am older and have this mind I do have, I think about it and I understand everything. I wish I had this mind back then as a child. I watched my father live his pain every day; I watched my father cry, fight, scream, wither away.... but I still saw that caring and loving heart. His soul was black from all this pain and his heart was broken. To this day I do not think he has ever recovered his black soul and broken heart, but it still shines as brightly as it can with love and commitment. He loves endlessly and he fights for his wife. Maybe now, aside from life's struggles, my stepmom',s cancer, and finances he has become one with his pain and there his soul shines bright. No longer black and no longer broken. I see this through my past, and I see now what I have never seen before, that anything can heal, anything can be whole again, and that pain is what teaches you to love yourself and what you have around you, just to make your soul shine through and you survive.