Reaching Out

Today, April 17th, is the anniversary of my dad's death. This thought of him going gives me uneasiness at times and peace at others. I tend to play the song "To Where You Are," by Josh Groban on repeat. I let tears fall out and reflect.

To put it into context my mom died earlier that year in January. As i had Covid I could not visit her in the hospital-it would have een my first visit to her in over 5 years. It was my dad who told me she had been hospitalized with infections, I had not considered septic shock. She was only 67.

Back in 2003 my twin sister left home. She was aware of my parents, particularly my mom, gaslighting and being manipulative. They did not allow for discussions of feelings. They were helicopter parents so to speak, and often used the silent treatment. The typical narcisstic parents. My sister was only 18 or 19. I have seen her only once since.

She had been estranged and rarely talked to my parents. When my mom died I urged her to reach out to my dad. She did and my dad was very happy that she did. What he didn't know is why she was reaching out. My dad texted me one day saying it's very bad to cut off family members and he could give me my sister's email. I let him know I had talked to her and wasn't sure if she did, but asked her to reach out to him before it was too late. My dad told me I had done a wonderful deed indeed. That is my small win and I feel the only thing my dad saw that I did right. It took 40 years but I got his blessings.

The day before his death, I talked to a co-worker about how he was likely going to go to a hospice as his condition had taken a bad turn. I was in tears when I mentioned I had united my dad and twin sister. It seems like a small thing-all I really did was shoot off an email, yet I felt it was a right of passage to let my dad pass onto the next world.

I, myself had left home in a sneaky way. I had grabbed garbage bags and put all my belongings in and in the middle of the night when my parents were sleeping, called an Uber XL and moved out. This was in 2019 and I was 35. I had wanted to leave much earlier but felt I had a duty to my parents. This had caused tremendous guilt, yet as my social worker said, I was merely saving my own life.

While likely I seemed like a bad person in my parents' eyes, I learned that it is never too late to redeem oneself. I had received many persecutory emails from my mom including one phone call that went awful, and I had even forwarded them to a temporary therapist. The therapist had told me to block my parents to preserve my sanity, yet that I felt was a bad move.

Summing up, while this day brings heavy feelings, I do feel a slight bit of satisfaction that for at least a fleeting minute in my dad's eyes, I was not all the things I was taught to hate about myself. I was not the disabled underachieving neurodivergent and broken person, but rather my dad's son. I had united my sister and my dad before death's scythe mowed. I had allowed my dad to pass on to the next united once more with my sister.