The fear of lost…

The fear of lost…

So going from those feelings of love and happiness I guess I should focus on those other moments. The ones that evoked fear and pain…

Growing up, I really never knew who my father was. I knew that he was loved by the parish in which we all attended school. He was known as the guy who called bingo and everyone loved. I was also so proud when I would see his picture on the bulletin board for Bingo. That father was something very foreign to me.

I remember the green chair that my dad always used to sit on when he got home from work. It was his chair and we were never allowed to sit on it and when he got home he would get his beer and by the end of the night he was sitting in the chair with a beer and just in his underwear. I don’t remember many conversations that we would have or that we had much interaction. He was someone that I feared. If we did something wrong he had a brown leather belt that was used to spank us. It was something we always feared and never really wanted but on the occasion that it did happen, it was something we never would forget.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love us, or that we were bad kids, It was that we were expected to behave in a certain manner. Being the youngest, I got away with a lot of things… I guess that I never really got out of that mentality. As I grew up, I remember talking to my dad about how I didn’t like it when he would drive with his beer. It really struck home one night when we were coming home from the lake and he went off the road and I told him that it wasn’t right for him to do that. I can remember his response very clearly when he said, if you don’t like it then you don’t need to come to the lake anymore. The lake was the one place where we could explore and I felt like I was useful and productive. I could filet a fish and was always willing to help and pull out a knife and show off my skills. It was also a bonding time for my brothers and I. It was a very special place and I didn’t want to lose that so I just kept my mouth shut.

I had a lot of times when I didn’t see eye to eye with my dad. I remember watching a video of me singing at my cousin’s wedding and we were sitting in my grandparents’ house. My dad was in the orange chair and I was sitting on the floor next to her shelf with the garden gnomes, and I was singing and my dad looked at me and told me that I shouldn’t give up my day job. Those words stuck with me and still to this day are hard to swallow. I felt like a disappointment. I didn’t think that I was good enough and he made me question something that I loved to do. It’s amazing how something that was maybe just meant as a joke, was something that I still carry with me. I have the fear of singing in front of people because I don’t want to disappoint or not be good enough.

There were a lot of times that I felt that I wasn’t good enough or that I just didn’t matter. One other very memorable moment was when I was in our room at the farmhouse and my parents began to fight. I was sitting by the bunk beds and I was playing with legos. My dad got upset and threw a big board from the room and it just so happened to hit me and cut my back. I remember starting to cry and my mom grabbed me and we left the house. It was at this moment that I thought they were going to get separated, but I also was excited because I was spending the night at grandmas with my mom. I wasn’t quite getting a grasp on what was going on around me.

One of the scariest moments though happened the day that my dad came home and said he thought that he was having a heart attack. I was sitting in the living room and was not allowed to go to my room because my brother was just diagnosed with mono and was upstairs. He came home and was holding his chest and my mom rushed off to the hospital with him. I remember feeling so alone again. I didn’t know what was going to happen or if he was going to make it. I was just left there. I felt like an after thought and I didn’t even know what to do. I was so scared and didn’t have anyone to talk to or know what to do.

It was the day before solo and ensemble competition in middle school and I remember going to the hospital later that day and seeing the rest of the family there and just not knowing what was going on. I do remember going to ICU to see him and then the next day having to sing. My aunt ended up taking me to the competition but I was so out of it I don’t really remember much of it at all… I was just so much in shock and didn’t know anything and no one would tell me what happened. I though for a while until I got word that I had lost my father then. It was a scary moment and something I never wanted to experience again.

There is one moment though that I will never forget that makes me still cry to this day. The only thing of my father that I have is a letter that he wrote to me my freshman year in high school. When I was away at our “retreat” for choir camp he wrote me this letter and quoted, “To the world you are but one person, but to one person you are the world.” Even thinking about how he wrote this letter telling me how proud of me he was and that he loved me. It was only one of a handful of times that he showed and expressed to me his love. It was a lot to take in and still chokes me up when I think about it. It’s something that I will always hold on too.

One place though that I remember visiting and would love to go back is North Carolina. I am not sure how it happened but I ended up spending my spring break with my dad driving to and around North Carolina. It was great and it was so beautiful and I loved every minute of it. It wasn’t until my dad told me to drive while he and his cousin wer drinking in the back seat. I remember feeling so scared because I had just gotten my permit and I was driving through all these steep cliffs and roads. I stuck through it and was proud of doing it. That is really the last time my dad every spent alone. Its said but true. Its had been since about my sophomore year in high school where we had actually talked and made the effort to get to know each other.

After the divorce that happened from my sophomore to senior year, we became very distant. The relationship changed and I remember going to his house in Albion and decorating his Christmas tree for him. I also know that I fell out of touch with him starting at that point. It wasn’t until show choir my junior year, when he came back into the picture. I don’t really know how it happened and I was unaware but he was helping create sets and making parts and blue prints. It was when he really started to fall in love with live performance. It was his way of helping in an area in which he had no knowledge and be a part of my life but still has the distance.

When I went to college I remember then having a major split with my father. I wanted his help to move my things since he had a truck. He knew that I wanted to use the truck but was upset that I didn’t ask him to move it for me and thought that I wanted to just use the truck and not invite him. It caused a huge fight between my parents and really drove a fork through the relationship that I had with my father. He didn’t end of coming to college with me and actually never visited me at all the entire time I was living in Muncie. That was really when the distance and the feelings were growing between us. I ended up just pushing him out of my life and really never let him back him. It was me trying to protect myself from hurt by avoiding the problem and dealing with the confrontation. 

So I was in a relationship and would spend my holidays with his side of the family. I didn’t really think that I was welcomed in the family and that I fit in with them. I know that is not true but I was just not ready to face to all and felt like the black sheep of the family. So instead I was very active with my ex’s family. It was nice and even got to spend the week in Puerto Rico.

I did see my dad from time to time but it was always for something and was very impersonal. I remember going to ask for the lake house keys to get the canoe and he was showing me the gardens and all the hard work he had done. He was so proud of himself and the work he had done with them. It was great to see him so involved in those kind of things.

When I did decide to move to Hawaii, it was right before my brother’s weeding. It was the one of thelast time we would all be together completely and take a family photo. It was a lot of work and he was telling everyone about me leaving and how proud he was, the only thing is that I never heard a word. I didn’t even get a good bye. It was a full year before I made it back and even then, I didn’t get to see him by both of our choice.

The first and last time I would ever see my dad alive was when I was moving to Sacramento with my former partner. We had talked and agreed to meet at a point halfway between home and Chicago. He was coming from Chicago and we were going to the city. It was very snowy and gross out and many times we thought about just canceling it but we did end up meeting. I bought us our dinner and we sat and talked about the routes we were taking and he asked a few questions about Sacramento. When he left he looked at him and said that it was good to see you again, and I gave him a weird look since he had never met him before and then he hugged me and told me to be in touch.

We did stay in touch until the day of the accident. I know that there was more that wanted to do and wanted to be written. Do I still have any resentment for him? Of course not. I looked at him in the casket and the only thing that I could do was say I was sorry and I forgive you. I wanted him to know that I did love him and that there was so much of him, in side of me that I never knew. I guess sometimes it’s a little to late to get that resolution and to develop a new friendship. It as a hard lesson to learn. But I do forgive him and love him and want him to know that I am sorry and I forgive him…