It was hard for me to find my father
after not seeing him for over 30 years and then not get along with him. It was
also hard for me to deal with his seeming lack of acceptance of me as a
responsible adult. That as an adult, I have the right to make my own decisions
and the ability to accept full responsibility for my actions.
I did go to Florida again, without
Caleb. My father was having heart trouble and his wife needed surgery on one of
her legs. So I flew down to help them. I originally planned to stay for five
weeks. After I arrived, we learned that the doctors couldn’t do surgery on his
wife’s leg as the other one had a problem, which needed to heal first. I stayed
for three weeks anyway as I’d made a commitment to be there and I felt Von
needed me. I flew back early because Caleb needed me. As I told my father, my
son’s needs come first. He understood.
While I was there, we decided to
watch a movie one night. My sister, Crystal (a young girl he and his wife had
adopted) wanted to watch “Harry Potter.” I said I wouldn’t watch it.
Von said, “Why not?”
I raised my eyebrows and said,
“Because it’s about witchcraft and witchcraft is as rebellion unto the Lord.”
“Prove it.”
“I’ll have to look it up in the
concordance as I don’t remember where exactly off the top of my head.”
“Well, if you have to look it up in
the concordance, then you can’t prove it.” I knew he thought he knew the Bible
well because he’d told me he’d read through it, but being unwilling to allow me
to prove what I said on such a flimsy basis was a shock.
I think we watched Stephen King’s
“Rose Red” instead that night. As we got deeper into the movie, I started
thinking, “Can’t you see the spiritual
battle in this movie?”
I didn’t say it out loud given my
father’s reaction to what I said about “Harry Potter,” but I got so tense
watching the movie, I was afraid I was going to grind my teeth that night.
Thankfully, I didn’t.
After I got home I realized that the
trip had been good for me. It gave me a deeper appreciation for my life here,
and just as important, I got the sense that my father now saw me as an adult
capable of taking care of my responsibilities without his advice, unless I ask
for it.
For a time after this, Von and I kept
in touch. His wife retired while he owned a store. Then he fell and injured himself
making it so that he was unable to work in his store. While he was healing, he
told me he’d bought me a birthday card, but couldn’t send any money as he had
in the past. I didn’t mind that, I just appreciated the fact that he thought to
buy me a card. I never received the card, but a few months later Caleb received
a card from him that contained a check for $25. I was hurt, but thought maybe
mine was coming. Then at Christmas, Caleb and I both received a card with money
for the two of us, but still no sign of my birthday card.
A couple of months later my roommate David,
Caleb, and I flew to Florida for a visit. Our first day there we all went out
to breakfast together. I said something to Von about him having sent Caleb a
card with money in it then a card at Christmas with money it for both of us,
but nothing for my birthday. His response was that his store was just getting
back on its feet.
I was hurt to think that he thought
so little of me that he could ignore my birthday, but do something nice for my
son’s. I decided then and there that if he did the same thing that year, I was
going to send anything he sent to Caleb for his birthday back to him with a
long letter telling him how much he hurt me by doing that.
A few months later my birthday came
and went with nothing from my father. When Caleb’s birthday came around, I
found a card in the mail from Von with a check enclosed for Caleb. I told Caleb
about it so that he would know that his Grandfather had not ignored his birthday,
but I made it clear that because his Grandfather saw fit to ignore mine, I
couldn’t let him have the card and money this time. He offered to split the
money with me, which I thought was sweet, but as I told him, I couldn’t allow
his Grandfather to ignore me that way. So, I sent it back with a letter telling
him the whole story from the start and explaining that I would not allow him to
send my son things as long as he chose to ignore me. He never apologized for
his actions. Never called me and said one word about what I’d written. In fact,
I don’t believe he ever called me again before he died. I did call him, but we
never had the same relationship after that. It was as if in telling him that
he’d hurt me, I’d crossed some line I wasn’t supposed to with him. In the end,
his actions cost him a relationship with me. The funny thing is that he told my
mother when I was born that they had a “beautiful daughter.”
I came home one night to find that
I’d missed a call from my sister, Crystal. Given that it was late in the
evening, I figured she might be asleep. I got on Facebook and found a post on
her page saying that he’d died. It hadn’t been up long, so I called her and we
talked briefly. I spoke with his widow, Virginia the next day and learned that
there would be no funeral. The hardest part of his death for me was grieving,
yet being angry at him.
Angry because I didn't get to know
him as I would have liked. Angry because he wasn't around while I was growing
up and as a result I missed out on knowing his mother better as well (she’d
died the year before). Angry that he did something that really hurt me and when
I wrote him a letter telling him what he did that hurt me, he never responded to it in any way. Angry that he was a stubborn, jackass who thought
that because he'd read the Bible all the way through more than once, he knew
all it contained and could not accept that I might know something he didn't.
Most of all I'm saddened that he was not willing to pay the price to truly mend
our relationship. I wanted that from him more than anything else.
I realize now that he was like so
many other people in my life. As long as I fit his concepts of who I should be,
things were fine. But if I dared to
be real and tell him how much he hurt me or if I dared to say something was in the Bible that he didn't remember
himself, I became a problem. To make matters worse in regards to the Bible, if
I couldn't remember the reference without looking it up, then it wasn't there
and he could go on his merry way believing he knew the Bible better than me,
his daughter.
I know that in the end, he paid the
price too for his unwillingness to heal our relationship, but it bothers me
nonetheless that our relationship will never be healed. Now I’m left to deal
with the emotional aftermath of his actions.
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