Way back in December of 1993, the 23rd I believe. I stood in my living room. It was a bright crisp day, the snow had fallen and piled up in all its fluffy glory. I tossed the mail onto my desk with a shrug, still running through the items I'd need to gather for the outdoor adventure I was planning on taking GQ on once he awoke from his nap.
One envelope, smaller than the others, stood out. It was addressed to me in strangely familiar block letters, the sender’s name, my biological father’s. It had been years since I last saw him. The crisp cream envelope now in my hand stood out like a sore thumb, I realized I'd only expected to hear from him on his deathbed (mainly via a news clipping in the local paper)—if ever.
My biological father had never been cruel to me as a child, had barely raised his voice unless I was in danger, but was never a major figure in my life. “Absence” implies missing, and I never felt loss or abandonment.
He and my mother had always been there but were lack luster parents at best. They hated one another behind the closed doors of our home but put on a great show for the rest of the world. At best he'd been aloof through my early childhood, until my mother decided that I was much too great a hassle to deal with and forced him to drive me to every extra curricular activity she'd enrolled me in to keep me busy and under someone else's care. I was 4 or 5 before I actu ally lived full time with my parents. My sister had been born and my mother wanted to work from home after she'd had the first of a gaggle of kids she actually wanted. Thus I was moved out of my grandparents home and brought back into the fold of what was to be my childhood home.
I remember my paternal grandmother and i having a heart to heart when i was 14. I was once again living with her and taking care of her in her failing health. My father living there as well now since my mother had thrown him out. She kindly but firmly stated that it was in my best interest to emancipat asap. I had been raising myself and my siblings as long as she could remember and at this point no court would allow her to be my caregiver in her failing health. She handed me a wad of cash and a bag she'd packed for me opened the door and told me to run before he killed me.
His rage had always been there, but unlike my mother's he'd hidden it from his children. My grandmother whom I came to find had always been terrified of my father's temper. I had come to know it, but as rage and violence were pretty standard parenting techniques throughout my life it was the norm. To have my grandmother show me such fear, well it was quite the revelation at 14 to say the least. So I ran. I ran and hid with friends, stilling attending school with the aid of my principal and two teachers whom I trusted. I didn't think aboutique all the drama and weirdness I just went about my life.
My grandfather and grandmother died within a year of each other. I couldn’t articulate the emotions. I couldn't actually feel them either. It was just one more death. Funerals seemed to be 3 a year for me for as long as I could remember. This wasn't any different although I wasn't able to attend the funerals as I was still keeping clear of "the family". Still they’d watched me after school nearly every day, when I wasn't living with them that is. Imagining a world without them, well that was kinda sobering.
In the years after their deaths, I had children of my own. A life that moved along at a rapid pace. I saw my biological father a handful of times, from a distance in public. Never engaging or harbouring any desire to speak to him, there was no relationship at all.
Dad was the man my bipolar mother married for stability and possibly to annoy her father. Her hatred truly began to errupt when I was in grade school, as did her openly mucking around with any man who showed her attention. Id never bonded with parent if I stand back and analyze it all with a critical eye.
So there I stood with this cream envelope in my hand and wondering if I should even open it. Why was he choosing to send my a Christmas card now? Was it because I had a child of my own? Was he feeling guilty that he'd missed out on the majority of my childhood, and was now going to miss out on his first born grandchildren life as well? Did he want to try and be a part of my child's life!
The last thought scared the shit out of me. There was no way I was ever going to allow a middle of the road racisit into my childschedule life, let alone a man whom I'd come to distrust with good reason. Blood has never meant family to me. Family was what I made of it and I was not allowing him into my family. I would never allow my children to feel the terror I felt. I would always protect them.
Yet the nagging voice remained. "Open the envelope." I did. A crisp 100 dollar bill lay inside the Victorian style Christmas card. Part of me was numb, the other part was a combination of confusion and annoyance. Did I send the card and money back? Did I just burn it? I wanted to send it back k, I didn't want to be a hypocrite. In the end I was. I pocketed the 100, and when GQ awoke we had our outdoor adventure.
Then I drove us into town and bought 100 dollars worth of baby supplies. Going against my beliefs for the benefit of my child's well being was a small price to pay. I'd do it again in a heartbeat if it meant my kids would benefit. They're the only thing that matters.
It has been 25 years now since that day. 25 years of ensuring my children are happy, healthy, and know beyond any shadow of doubt that I love them beyond reason. That my world was made so much better because of them. I'll happily spend the rest of my days reminding them of that with every thought, word, and deed. 25 years and I don't miss him. Sometimes I feel bad that I feel nothing at all for either he or she, and then I smile and remind myself that that is a wasted emotion and carry on.
"Anyone can achieve their fullest potential, who we are might be predetermined, but the path we follow is always of our own choosing. We should never allow our fears or the expectations of others to set the frontiers of our destiny. Your destiny can't be changed but, it can be challenged. Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one."
- Martin Heidegger
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