Black Shoe

Tomorrow, March 2 is what would have been my father's birthday.  He went missing 2 1/2 years ago on August 5th.  To this day, no one knows what happened to him.

Some of my extended family would like to portray my father as a good person, a missionary who found God and turned his life around.  Those of us who really knew him, know differently.  There were two different sides to my father: the side that other people saw that was charming, friendly and caring and then there was the side my siblings, mom and I saw that was mean, abusive and selfish.  My father was an addict who had been committed twice for rehab.  His drug of choice?  Pretty much anything he could get his hands on(methadone, morphine, demerol, alcohol, crack/cocaine, marijuana).  Pretty much you name it, he did it.  He would manipulate and lie to get what he wanted.  He was very good at hiding his drug use and he could look you straight in your eyes and lie to you.  He did not care who he hurt and he never apologized or took responsibility for his actions.  I do not have any happy memories of my life involving my father.  He was simply just a man who made life hell.  He would fall asleep mid conversation because he was so stoned, high or drunk.  He would get high, then get paranoid and believe someone was outside the house.  He would get angry and get violent.  I remember hating my father so much and wishing he would overdose.  He was also physically and chronically ill and we had to continuously take care of him.  I was glad when he would go into the hospital because for at least a little while, life was good and sane.  No one outside of my father's family knew of my father being an addict.  My father's family knew but did nothing.  It was much easier for them to act like everything was ok and we were one big, happy family.

I read Sylvia Plath's poem, "Daddy" in college and it just really spoke to me about my relationship with my own father.  The title of this blog is in reference to that poem.  I didn't invite my father to my wedding.  I didn't invite him because I didn't want him to ruin what was one of the happiest days of my life.  My husband met my father only when we went to go to my grandfather's funeral.  He was never a father to me and didn't deserve to walk me down the aisle or even be there.  He missed my college graduation and my graduate school graduation when he promised me he would be at both.  Truth was he never was there for me.  Of course there was always some elaborate reason why he wasn't which was always just a lie.  My little brother would call me scared and crying because he didn't know where my father was and he had been missing for 3 days.  My brother was 16 at the time.  My father would always show up eventually with a lie that someone had stole his wallet and he went to find them.  In all actuality he had spent 3 days on a drug binge in a crack house and spent all our money.  When my sister called me on August 6th to tell me my father was missing, I remember telling her "It's ok, he will show up in a couple of days, he always does".  I thought he was just probably on another drug binge but when the days kept passing by I knew he wasn't going to just show up.

When my grandfather passed away, my grandmother told me I should forgive my father.  I cut my father out of my life 4 years prior to him going missing.  The last time I saw my father was the year before at my grandfather's funeral.  I eventually did forgive my father but it was for me, not for him.  I didn't want to carry all of that anger anymore.

Mostly now all I feel is sadness when I think of my dad.  Sad that he couldn't be the dad I wanted and needed.  Some of my family believes that my father is still alive.  I hope I never do find out what really happened to my dad because I don't think it was anything good.  Do I believe he is still alive?  No.  I believe Karma is a bitch.

This isn't something I talk about with people because I do not need anyone feeling sorry for me.  No one said life is easy.  I feel like God was always with me, carrying me through those hard times.  The reason I worked so hard in college and graduate school was because I never wanted to return to life with my father.  I feel in life you have choices, you can either be a victim or you can be a survivor.  I chose to be a survivor.