Also, in re-reading my entry with a clearer head I noticed I sound really angry at my dad. And I guess, inside, I am. Angry. Hurt. Still licking the wounds of his betrayal.
But I still love him so much it makes me light-headed. My dad. My dad my dad my dad my dad my dad. He’s smart, and funny, and handsome. You should see the way women his age look at him, y’all. And some younger.
I accompanied him to his 40th high school reunion back in June. What an enlightening experience that was. He grew up in a speck of a mid-western town, so his class only had about 35 graduating seniors; about 18 showed up to the reunion. My dad looked at least five years younger than all of them. At least. I heard stories and saw him interact with people in a way I never expected. They revered him. It was weird. He was the doctor’s son. (Notice I said the.) A classmate, a goofy looking guy named Teddy – a friend my dad learned to fly with - told me my dad and uncles always had the best toys. There was still a twinge of jealousy in his voice when he said it.
But that’s not my point.
My dad.
When he first moved out I didn’t talk to him for months. He’d call and I’d refuse to take the phone; he’d come over to get my brother and even though I’d hear the pain in his voice wafting over the balcony, I wouldn’t come down. T told me years later that whenever she spent the night I told her he was out of town on business. I have no memory of that lie at all.
When I finally started seeing him again
he’d make sure every time we were together was f-u-n fun. We did stuff
we never did when we were a family. The zoo, fancy dinners downtown, shopping
and spending the night in the Galleria Hyatt, day trips to the hill country.
He was buying my love back, I see this now, and I lapped. it. up.
He still does to some extent. I can’t say he’s ever really parented
me. Not really. I think he’s afraid to punish me – afraid I’ll
turn the dark secret on him. He’s kept me very separate. Protected. Glassed
away.
But somewhere along the lines we became friends. I love hanging out with him. He likes to go to SNL movies and he doesn’t give my brother and I a look when we order a draft with dinner. Seeing the two of them together – do they notice how their vocal inflections match? How their hands are identical? How I can see the same scared little boy in both of them?
So my dad is my friend. But he’s not my father. Not the way I see other dads being capital F fathers. Sure, he knows tons of stuff. And I can ask him all sorts of financial or technical questions. But to ask him about love, or relationships, or guys, or life – real life? That’ll never happen.
A good friend - an amazing, wonderful, insightful, guy friend - once emailed me this:
. . .you really need to take your father on at some point. There comes a time in a child's adult life when he/she has to stand up to his parents. Hopefully, that time will never come. For some of us, it does.
My point is that, even if his behavior never hurt your mother (I'm sure it did), it hurt you. And it hurt you to see it hurt your mother, right? Sometimes your parents get so blinded that they can't see the pain they cause until they hear it from the kids, the ones who have seen and felt this crap for years. What I'm suggesting is that you take your father on. Ask him the tough questions that you never had the courage or the opportunity to ask. Maybe you'll form a friendship out of it you never expected. Maybe he can give you some insight into the mistakes he made that he wishes he could take back. Parents are people, too, and unless we see them that way, they'll act like they know it all. . . .I'm sure your father loves you and your mother very much, and to some extent, he probably regrets what he has done, whether he admits it or not. He has to see what a beautiful young woman you've become and wonder what it would have been like to be there the whole time you were growing up. I just think that asking him the hard questions will get you a lot farther than pretending nothing is wrong.
And he’s right. He’s so very right. But how do I even broach that? How do you ask those hard questions? I told my mom that I was thinking about doing it, about taking him on, and she actually talked me out of it. She said it would hurt him. That she’s sure he’s always thought of himself as a good father and that it would break his heart to let him know otherwise.
It galled me when she said that, but that kind of selfless viewpoint is typical of my mom. And I guess that’s why I’ve never said anything. I don’t want to hurt him. Plus, it’s embarrassing. I just do not need to know the particulars about my dad’s sex life, thankyouverymuch.
So I don’t really have any answers. I’m sure that’s a surprise.
I know I haven’t mentioned the Texan
in awhile. Dish soon, I promise.
