A confession about my father

Yesterday was Father’s Day and I read everyone’s posts about their dads and how much they mean to them. And I have to admit I felt a slight pang when I read them. A longing for that sort of sentiment for my father.  My father and I have always had a lukewarm relationship. One where there have been walls between us. Not intentional walls but walls nonetheless. He is of a different era where feelings were not expressed. Love not shown. But he was the provider and that was how he satisfied his role as the man of the house.

I never really knew my father before my mother died. He left at 5 in the morning every day to go to work then when he came back home, food had to be ready and the house had to be quiet. No slamming doors. No loud voices or he would rant. He and my mother had a tumultuous relationship for as long as I can remember. I never really saw any love between them nor do I remember any. They just existed as a couple. As our parents.

After my mother died, I took on the role of caring for the family. I was only 13 at the time but had to form another level of relationship with my father because I had to go to him for the grocery shopping money, be in the car with him to get the groceries and I don’t remember us ever having a conversation about anything. When I reflect on my relationship with my father, I have to say I do not have the same joyful memories of him as many others have of theirs.

But what I do have for my father, now that I am a parent myself, is the utmost respect. As a parent I recognize I am doing the best I can with the resources and background I come from. So I now believe so is he. He was the provider for us. Not the emotional provider but the financial provider. He was the one who made sure we had a roof over our heads and food to eat. And then we were pretty much left alone to make whatever decisions we had to make about where our lives were going. So we were given a lot of rope from early on to be whoever we wanted to be.

I also got my drive from him because I did not want to end up relying on anybody for anything as I saw my mother suffer for many years because of her lack of education and opportunity. My father inversely made me want to make something of myself so I could remain independent. So I could provide for myself no matter what.

I also knew that if I got into trouble or embarrassed him in any way, he would cut me off in an instant and would not even think twice about it. He was a very proud man and neither his name nor his reputation was to be messed with by anybody. Not even us. So indirectly he set me on a path of doing the right thing. Of making something of myself.

Yesterday I went to see my father on Father’s Day. I have to admit it has been tough for me to spend as much time with him as I could and should because he is not in a good place. He has become paranoid about life. Afraid of life and in doing so spends the bulk of his time being angry. Snapping at us when we don’t agree with him. Lashing out if we dispute his claims that everyone is out to get him.

But yesterday I went because it was Father’s Day and I wanted to honor the man who helped to give me life. I wanted to see if he was better than the man who seemed to be rejecting me the last time I saw him. The man who seems embarrassed by the way he is so much that he wants to shut himself off from the world. But he reached out to me in a way I was not expecting. He asked for help. He asked me to help him.

This time it was different. He was different. He seemed like such a small child when he was asking me for help. That I knew he was in trouble and despite the relationship we have had, he is my father and I will do whatever I can to make sure he is comfortable. To make sure he has what he needs because one day, God willing, I will be an elderly woman who may need help. If I don’t help my father, no one will help me.

Life has a funny way of equalizing relationships over time. Of bringing us face to face with what we fear the most. Of having to show compassion. And my father may not be the father of the year but he is my father and I will go to the ends of the earth to make sure he is okay because I know as parent, he is doing the best he could with the limited resources he had. No one to love him. His father rough on him. I know he comes from a different era where love was very hard to show but he was showing love to us in the only way he knew how by providing for us. And now it is my turn to provide for him. And I will because without him I would not be here today.