Father's Day

Its Sunday, July 18, 2006 and this is the first father's day without my dad. My father passed away on mother's birthday March 20 this year. My father's day, even though it wasn't a complete surprise (my father had been sick for years and according to his doctors, he had months to live 4 years ago), it was a difficult time for the family. My parents had been married for almost 25 years (anniversary is July 4) and my father was my mothers first love. I still live at home so I, along with my twin sister and younger brother , still lived with our parents (you can call me a scrub if you want, but I still do for myself). So on this father's day I'm going to write a blog about father's, mostly mine but I do plan on addressing something else. I'm going to try not to go in depth in this entry because if I do it will be very long.

I broke down at my father's funeral! This is the first time I've ever broken down at a funeral and I can't believe it was his. My father and I really didn't have a great father son relationship. The last month or so of his life we rarely spoke. I mean we may say good morning and good night to one another but it wasn't uncommon for us not to even do that. I'm not sure when I began to feel like my father didn't really love but I can recall a couple of these situations.

The first problem I had was a comparison he made with his brother. My uncle is doing ok for himself now but in the past that wasn't the case. My uncle was addicted to drugs and homeless. Not exactly someone I wanted to be compared to. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I worked, in his eyes I was just like my uncle. I was a honor roll student, didn't get in trouble and really didn't ask for much. I got all A's and one B one year on my report card, and because my sister got straight As I was lazy and didn't work hard. I would cry all night, sometimes I would even lock myself in my room, turn off anything that made light and lock myself in my closest and cry until I fell asleep. These are my childhood memories.

When I got older I realized that I just wasn't going to do anything that pleased this man. I continued to do well in school and got into the school (college) of my choice. But it wasn't good enough for him. But knowing me, some of you know that I'm going to be me. I was probably extremely odd to my father. I was a loner. I kept to myself and really didn't need human contact. I was happiest when I was alone. He wanted me to be outgoing, wanted me to want to go outside and play with the other kids. Wanted me to do something other than read, write and watch TV (I loved watching educational shows like the news and dateline when I was younger). When I chose a small college in new jersey he was unhappy. He wanted me to go to a big school like Rutgers, like my sister. When I chose a career path that wouldn't make me a millionaire but would allow me to help others, he was unhappy. We would argue about these things and our other differences until we stopped talking. I don't know about him, but this was ok for me. Whenever we tried to talk we would just end up arguing, so what was the point?

So now its Father's day 2006 and everyone wants to know how I feel. I never cared for this holiday because I really didn't have a good relationship with my dad. It was one of those times of the year that I had to pretend. Now its a release, I don't need to pretend. I can treat this like any other day. I lived with my father my whole life but he died without knowing or understanding who I was as a person.

But on Father's Day I did send a text to my older sister who has to be both mother and father to my nephew. I love my nephew but I recognize he is far from perfect, but my sister is doing the best job she can without the help of the man who laid down with her to make my nephew. So on this father's day I wish a happy Father's Day to all the women that play both mommy and daddy to the young men who will grow to one day become better father's than their dads.