October 09, 2006

Happy Birthday, Daddy

My dad turned 64 on Saturday. That sounds like a large, old number - I suppose it is - and it is one that is almost impossible to fathom.

Shortly after my parents separated, my brother went into counseling. In retrospect, it's a track my parents should've put me on as well, but I was so good at faking being well-balanced that it must not have seemed necessary. Even though I was only 11 at the time, and it was information probably best kept from me, I clearly remember a statement that the counselor made to my mother about Guy. She told her that my brother was struggling so badly because he didn't know how to reconcile his anger towards someone he worshipped so much.

Thinking about that now, I realize that statement applied to me as well. I've come out of that place, and as I have expressed before, I'm not angry anymore. It makes me sad sometimes still - it always will - but it no longer has its hooks in me.

My dad is just a man, a man with faults and bad habits and all the baggage that goes along with making it to 64 years. Now that I'm an adult, I understand how a lot of his parenting was a reflection of his own childhood and that knowledge breaks my heart all over again.

When I see Guy with Micheal, I see how different it is. I know that the cycle is over and I'm so grateful to God to healing our family. We haven't been a four-person unit in almost 20 years, but because I'm unmarried and childless, when I think about "family," they're the unit I cling to.

Several years ago, when I was leaving Houston after a weekend visit, my dad hugged me in front of the security line at terminal C (the terminal in Bush-Intercontinental that you literally have to go through a parking deck to get to), and he said, "I love you more than anything in the world."

Back at ya, Dad.

Posted by hannah at 11:20 AM