The Story of My Father

I have thought about this day for a very long time.

My father passed away when I was 13, and soon thereafter I did the math and determined that January 10, 2006 would mark the day that my father has officially been dead for longer than he was alive during my lifetime. And now that day has come. I have to say, I am astounded by the strength with which this man's memory continues to affect my life. I can honestly say that I have thought about my father, in some way, every single day since his death. This is the story.

It is a strange mixture, my feelings on my father. On the one hand, I hate my father. For what he did to my mother, my brothers and even me - in the end. And for all the things I learned about his life once it was over. On the other hand, I love my father. He did love me. It wasn't selfless, as a parent's love should be. But he loved me and I knew it. He held me close to his heart and loved me more than he loved most people - but my father's was a selfish love. A love that cost him his life, and nearly cost me mine.

Musically gifted, I have pictures of my father playing guitar on a San Francisco beach, dressed in hippy gear sitting alongside a man playing bongo drums. He was smart, capable of quickly inserting reasoning into a conversation to secure outcomes he desired. I remember him picking me up, placing me on his lap and nuzzling my face into his chest. Always smelled of cheap bath soap and cigarettes. He beat my mother violently. His eyes glowed when he was happy and his laughter was pure, he had the giddiness of innocent youth when his spirits were high. I was his favorite child.

One of my first memories is when I was three, my father took me to get a Cabbage Patch Doll. There were only three left. Dad reached and grabbed the one that looked most like me. That doll is one of the few things I have had for nearly my entire life. He treated me like a princess and catered to the lavish requests of my childhood. My father was a demanding man, his vanity required attention - his expectations unreachable. Except by me. I was the one person who my father did not look upon with overwhelming suspicion. He repeatedly assured me of my perfection and was quick to point it out to others. I remember his cold distance towards my brothers, constantly admonishing them to be better men, work harder and take responsibility. Be more like their father. He told me that his green Cadillac could fly and I believed him. He showed me off and told everyone that I was his flawless little lady.

When I was 5, my parents split-up. My mother found the courage to leave my father after over 20 years of his abuse; he spent the rest of his life regretting that he had lost her. We went back and forth between the two. Eventually, my father began driving for a trucking company doing cross-country deliveries. We never knew when he was coming or going. Sometimes, he would suddenly appear at my mother's home when he was driving through town. He would come down our street in a huge diesel. Unexpected and amazing. The presence of my father and his huge truck changed the atmosphere of the entire street. There was a magic in my father's presence.

Around the time I turned 11, my father became ill. Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, he was left limping, stuttering, losing his train of thought. He stopped driving and moved to Missouri, where his family lived. When I learned of his illness, I began praying fevorently every night. Ten Our Fathers and countless Hail Mary's. I believed God could make him better, and that if I tried hard enough, he would. That never happened.

I spent summers in Missouri visiting my father. One summer, I was 11 or 12, he was working at a factory that had a special program for disabled employees, and my father was a night-shift supervisor. I remember that I used to stay up and watch The Sound of Music over and over, waiting for him to come home. When he would finally arrive at 3:00am, we would sit at the table and talk about our day, over his coffee and my milk. He would tuck me in and kiss my forehead. Sometime later, in the months before his death, he pulled me aside: "I want you to know Lex, how important it was to me when you would wait for me to come home from work. I think about that a lot, how I never asked and you did it just so you could see me. It means more to me than almost anything anyone has ever done." He was near tears. I'll never forget the sincerity. He meant every word. I have a select number of very special memories of things in my life that have made me feel incredibly, deeply, truly loved. This one makes the top 5.

As his illness progressed, my father's innate selfishness combined with self-pity and highlighted his most unlikeable qualities. His family began to distance themselves from him one by one. From where I was standing, a sick man was being abandoned by his mother, father, siblings - even his own sons. They stopped helping clean his house. They stopped bringing over meals. They stopped helping run errands. They stopped visiting. My father had always been so kind to me, and the thought of his being alone and ill consumed me. I turned 13 in 1992 and spent that summer at my father's home, determined to care for a man I idolized and loved more than anyone. It was just me and him - my eldest brother was in the military, stationed overseas. My other brother, just short of two years older than me, had moved in with our grandmother. I thought he was a jerk for that. I couldn't imagine that the two disagreed so much that my brother couldn't help his own father through illness.

Living with my father was demanding. He was obsessive-compulsive, and supervised my chores like a military officer. Cleaning the floors with a mop wasn't enough; they had to be hand scrubbed. Every other day. Along with the counters, walls and refrigerator. On off days, I scrubbed the remainder of the house. Toilet brushes were insufficient. My father required that I take a wash rag, stick my arm deep into the bowl and scrub the toilet inside out. Laundry had to be folded, hung and creased to perfection. Entire loads would be redone for the slightest oversight. I spent half of every day cleaning a clean house. The cooking and shopping were also my responsibility. Although the cooking was not difficult. We lived on egg and mustard sandwiches. The remainder of my father's disability benefits were spent on my father's cigarette habit and requirement that the fridge be full of Pabst Blue Ribbon at all times. The bill paying and banking were my responsibility. To this day, I can forge my father's signature perfectly.

I remember asking to spend the night at friend's homes, or even to just go out and play. My father would look at me sadly, saying he wished I could, but warning that he might fall, or need help and that something terrible might happen if I left. I had very few friends. Sometimes, they would come over. But usually it was just me and dad alone in our house. I did have one recurring outing. Every week, I received an allowance. Ten dollars. Half had to be given straight back to my father to be deposited into a savings account. The other half I spent during the one hour per weekend when I was permitted to leave. I would ride my bike to the library and check out a backpack full of books. Then I would go to the store and spend my last cent on candy. Reading in my bed while eating taffy was my social life. Unless Dragnet was on, dad was always making me watch Dragnet with him.

At some point that summer, my father asked me to move in permanently. It was made clear that he needed someone, that if I didn't stay he would have no way to survive. He said I was the only one who cared anymore. I told him my mother would never allow it. He responded by explaining that she didn't want to give up the disability benefits she received for me when I was with her. He reminded me that she had a new daughter (my half-sister) and was quite busy. He talked about how he had to have her investigated for failure to take care of us kids properly, how he would send money for her to get things I needed and she would spend it on herself. He promised an eternity of fun and love if I were to live with him. He promised he would go to court, fight for me and win his daughter if my mother resisted. I didn't know what to do. I felt conflict between the attachment I had to my mother, friends and life in California, and the duty I felt to care for the person I believed loved me more than anyone else. Towards the end of the summer, my father met a new friend who was at our home with some frequency. I was beyond relieved, as the Friend entertained my father and I had more time to fall into my books and forget real life.

I remember the beginning of the end. July 1992. I was holed up in my room reading. I heard a crash. Recognizing the familiar sound, I flung open my bedroom door. My father could hardly walk but was too proud to use a wheelchair consistently, and he often had bad falls. I have numerous memories of lifting him only to fall myself beneath his weight. And comforting him as he cried: that he was diseased; that all he loved had abandoned; that the cruelty handed was more than anyone should face. Once, when I was off on a library run, I came home to find my father walking, balancing himself on his wheelchair, down the street. He could barely hold himself up and by the time I reached him, he fell to the ground. He wailed that he would not let the disease beat him, but his eyes screamed that it already had.

Anyhow, as I said, I ran to the familiar falling sound. Opening my bedroom door, my father was sprawled across the floor. I watched as he threw a bottle underneath the couch. He had been drinking relentlessly for weeks, I had found bottles of hard liquor throughout the house. I knew that because of his medications, he was not supposed to be drinking hard liquor. The beer was bad enough. But he was hiding it from me. On this particular occasion, I asked him what he had thrown. "Nothing!" he yelled and quickly reached for the bottle. I reached at the same time. I got there first. Anger. Demanding that I mind my business and respect my father, he screamed that I get out of his way and remain in my room.

Now, I have a thousand memories of my father's violence and anger. Countless memories involving my brothers. But most specifically, I have memory after memory of the look in my father's eyes as he hit my mother to the ground. No remorse or regret. Always with an air of justification. I have one memory.... my mother was beaten badly. After, she went on like nothing happened. She made dinner and sat at the table, staring directly down at her plate. My father stumbled drunk into the room and stood behind my mother's chair and said "I'm sorry, do you forgive me?" My mother said nothing. He grabbed her, shaking her hard, demanding forgiveness. I remember thinking he would hit her again if she didn't obey. She whispered that she forgave him and sat silent as he forced a kiss upon her. I knew her acceptance was reluctant, it was not an embrace of love. My mother never looked up from her plate, her sadness was so real I could nearly reach out to touch it. My father turned and smiled at me, as if to reassure that my parents were fine.

Anyhow, so this time, this time when he fell and threw his alcohol under the couch, I saw the same anger and violence in his eyes. Only this time, it was directed at me. And this time, he did not have the power to physically harm anyone. This is my only memory of my father directing such emotions at me. As bad as it was to see it directed at others, something inside of me was destroyed that day. My father lay spread across the floor in a puddle of drunk humiliation, defeat and pieces of the crumbling pedestal I had held him on for my whole life.

The next day, I was given permission to visit a friend. My father's Friend was at the house and promised to care for him. I was relieved and felt like a normal 13 year-old. Later that night, I came home and found my father, fallen upon the couch, naked. I was horrified. I went straight to my room and did not come back out that night. The next day, I walked into the living room and my father sat in the dark - staring ahead blankly at the wall. He would not talk. He was embarrassed and ashamed. I pretended it never happened.

Some days later, I telephoned my mother and cried and cried. I felt like a nurse who couldn't get things right. A maid who made every mistake. I told her that he wanted me to stay but admitted that I didn't want to. My prayers weren't being answered. My father was getting sicker. And my image of him was melting under the heat of some ugliness that he sunbathed under everyday.

Later, I told my father that I had made my decision - I could not move in with him. I missed my mother. My father offered to fly me to visit her, then fly me back out to start school. I refused. My real reasons were obvious. I remember trying to defend my decision, reassuring that his Friend was there and had offered to do all I was responsible for. But my father reacted as though I were the last in a long line to abandon him. He questioned how it was that he loved me more than anything, treated me better than anyone, and yet still I would leave him? After that conversation, I never again felt the unconditional rain of love from the man I once believed to be my greatest ally.

The last weeks of the summer were full of discomfort. He hadn't wanted me to go. He told me he couldn't get by without me. My whole life was helping him live, and he was living it drunk and defeated. Torn between obligation and disillusion, I held to my decision and fled to my mother. I loved my father dearly, but ultimately decided it was better to leave someone to themselves than allow myself to be destroyed along the way.

He sat in silence the day I left, ignoring my goodbyes. I paused at the door with my suitcase and turned to him offering the last words I ever said to my father: "I love you." He stared straight ahead, didn't move or acknowledge my words. Silence was the last thing my father ever said to me. I turned and walked away. I did not look back. As the airplane took off, guilt washed over like cold rain.

I tried calling when I returned to California. My father's Friend answered the phone. I asked to speak with my dad and he said "you kind of already are." I demanded to know what he meant and he explained. My father had fallen into a delusional state. He had been talking with me as if I were there with him and my father's Friend had no idea what to do. I begged him to call my father's doctor, and to stop his drinking. The call ended without me ever getting to speak with my father. I was left with only a foreboding sense of imminent dread.

One week later, word came. My father was dead.

There was no autopsy. Speculation in the family centered on whether he had intentionally overdosed on medication and alcohol. I don't know, but whether he meant to or not, my father killed himself. He abused his body and his illness and acted as though he had endured the most terrible of fates. My father gave up on the world, and then got mad when the world returned the favor.

My father's death completely changed me. Initially, I was convinced that he had intentionally killed himself, and that he had done it because I abandoned him. How could I be so selfish and leave someone who so clearly needed help? I began isolating myself, focused on self-hatred. I was inadequate and ungrateful, and that had led to my father giving up on life. He died alone and I had left him to that. Over the next three years, I battled depression. I cut myself and frequently took large amounts of pills that made me sick. I thought I deserved it.

By the age of fourteen, I was still deep in turmoil and guilt over my father's death. But some things were changing. I met someone. A boy. That boy was Boyfriend. He was smart and kind and worried about me even though he hardly knew me. We began dating immediately. About one week into that relationship, there came a night when I was home alone. I found a large, unopened bottle of medication. I took them all. My mother came home and found me. I was rushed to the emergency room where my stomach was pumped.

When I returned to school, Boyfriend asked what had happened, where I had been. I told him. Later that day, he cried to me. Said he was ending the relationship because although he loved me, he could not stand by and watch me engage in such self-abuse. And, obviously, he hadn't been enough to stop me. He talked about how badly he wanted a healthy relationship, he felt such pain from his relationship with both of his parents, and he couldn't stay by someone so self-destructive. He was so worried. And yet, he left me. He walked away to protect himself, even though he loved me. In my eyes, he had done to me what I had done to my father. And I could not blame him for it. I found myself admiring his ability to engage in such self-preservation. For the first time, I considered the possibility that my father's death was not my fault. I began to realize that my father's weakness and death were not my sins, and so the process began.

And so here I am, over 13 years later. I am beyond the guilt. I am beyond the anger. I remember things my father did that make me smile every time. I remember things my father did that I will never repeat to anyone. I think I see it for what it was now. He was a complicated man, emotionally and intellectually - but ultimately most of his life and decisions were driven by the selfish means he used in his attempts to satisfy his desires. But he was my father. And he did love me. I try not to let the overwhelmingly negative history of his life destroy the good memories I have of a girl and her father, and there are quite a number of those. To allow myself to ignore what I loved, to push it away beneath his ugliness, that is something my father would have done. But I refuse to give up the wonderful memories I have or allow the happiness I remember during those times to be tainted by the big picture. I loved him, I still love him and I love those good memories. Nothing, not even the string of terrible things he did before and after, can destroy the amazing man that lives in those memories.

Do not get me wrong, I hold no illusions about things my father did. But I see him as a part of me. He represents who I could become if I allow impatience and personal desire to override empathy and kindness. My father was smart and capable and I can relate to many of his qualities. It's how he and I apply those qualities that marks our greatest differences. I am the person my father could have been. I know the potential was there because I saw him be that man a few, brief times. Somehow, I find solace in that. But he fell short and lost sight of the importance of never losing sight of others. Those are mistakes I will not make.

I learned a lot from my father. Mostly what I don't want to be. But some of what I do want to be. I want to have the thoughtfulness of thanking my daughter and telling her when I feel loved, like he did that one time so long ago. I want my happiness to be full of life, childlike and consuming - as he was when happy. I want to fly a Cadillac and change a street with the simple act of arrival. It can't be so far off . My father did it, surely I can come close.