My Dad

Today is Father’s Day. Time to think back on my relationship with my dad.
He’ been gone about ten years now.
When I was growing up, my dad was a pretty hardcore alcoholic
Strangely it was only in the evenings and the full tilt on the weekends.
Monday thru Friday, he never missed work.
When he was sober, he never spoke a word to any of us. Or anyone, really.
Everyone, except the people in our neighborhood, thought he was such a
nice, quiet gentleman.
When he was lit, he drooled, slurred his speech and hurled abuse. Loudly.
I hated him.
Time went by, I grew up and pursued my life. I tried not to think much about
the dysfunction in that other home. But it had affected me in ways you can’t
imagine…or maybe some of you can.
My dad lived to be 87 and I never saw him drunk in his later years.
For some reason, maybe his health, he seemed to have stopped or at least slowed.
He started to come out of his shell and actually converse with my brother and I.
It turned out, he was very intelligent and had a wicked sense of humor. Who knew?
Sad that my mother, who died ten years prior to him had to miss this flowering
of my father.
Once, he asked me, “Do you or your brother have ‘my problem’?”….I looked at
him sadly and said no.
I grew to love my dad with all my heart in those last years. How very thankful I am
that it turned out that way.

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  1. oh lolomeowsie, your message made me cry and smile. Cry that you didnt have the childhood that you should have had, and maybe you’ll never know what made your dad this way. But smile, because in later life you learned to love him, and forgive him…and that because of this, you have your dad to think of on this fathers day. You are brave and strong, and I know that he is watching over you. Love Annie

  2. I do know what you mean. I have learned not to make too much of holidays. Holidays in this country are all about growing up in a particular kind of nuclear family. If yours did not fit that, then they are painful. A lot of us did not have that. I figure I don’t have to celebrate them. Just celebrate the life I have now and the people in it now. all the time…not on a particular day.

  3. I had the same experience with my father – he was an alcoholic and we rarely saw him. He worked too Monday to Friday and after work he would drop his work bag off at home (and that is the only way we knew he had come home because he dropped it in the same place every day) and then he would be off to the pub. He was also at the pub on weekends. He died at the age of 60 and we never got to know much about him. His pub mates were closer to him and knew more about him than the 5 of us kids. I so wished I had had the chance to know more about his life – in hindsight and with the experience of age, I think he must have been a very sad man.

    1. Forever, my heart hears you. To have a father, and yet feel like you don’t have one is very hard on the self esteem. But the truth is, he is the one who really missed out.