Daddy's Little Girl?

I was born in Granada Hills, in 1977 to my parents Tom and Teri. I lived with them for the first year of my life. The story I am told is that my mom worked days and my dad worked nights. My Grandpa would come over in the morning while my Dad was still sleeping and take me home with him. He retired at 45, so he had all the time in the world to care for me. Things weren’t so pleasant in the household, so I’m told, so I went to stay with my Grandparents. My parents divorced and it was decided that I would just continue to live my Grandparents from then on. I was blessed to be raised by people who honestly, truly to the bottom of their souls had my best interests in mind. During my birthday or holiday’s my Mom and Dad would come together, and there was never an ounce of anger or resentment between them, at least none that I never saw. I know it couldn’t have been terribly easy on my mom, but she sucked it up for my sake. My dad had issues with addiction that over the course of my life would bring him in and out of it for years at a time, the longest span being 10 years. I was raised by my Mom’s parents, so you would think they would have had resentment towards my Dad and what he did to my Mom and I, but every time my Dad would flake on me or disappear, the only story I would ever get is, that my Dad loved me, he just had some problems of his own that he had to work out and that it had nothing to do with me. I never grew up angry with my Dad for not being there, and plus I had my Grandpa, so I was never lacking a father figure, until my Grandpa passed away when I was 17. I guess I should rephrase that last sentence, I have never been angry with my Dad, up until now. I was at a wedding the other day, and the dance for the bride and her father came on and it was to the song “I Loved Her First”. I had never heard the song before, and the words were very touching and made me a little misty eyed, until my friend said “I hope my Dad picks this song for us to do our dance to”. Then it hit me. If I ever get married, I don’t have a Dad to walk me down the aisle or to dance a father/daughter dance with. The tears started spilling over. I don’t know if I was crying because I was sad that my Grandpa isn’t around to do those things or because my own father doesn’t care to be part of my life enough for me to want him to do those things for me. Maybe I was crying for both. It got me thinking about my dad and all the crap that he has done to me throughout my life. When I was a little girl, he would come and pick me up on the weekends, not every weekend, just random weekends when he would decide he wanted to spend time with me. He would take me to the movies or to play miniature golf and I would spend the night at his house. He would take me home and tell me that he would pick me up next weekend and we would do whatever it was we didn’t get to do that weekend. He would tell my Grandparents that he would pick me up Friday night at 6pm. Friday night would come and it would start getting close to 6pm and I would wait in the front room of our house and look out the window that faced the street and wait to see him pull up. Then 7pm would come and still nothing. Then 8pm would come and still nothing. It was usually about 2 hours after the time he said he would be there that I would get the phone call from him saying he wasn’t going to be able to make it. I don’t remember ever feeling disappointed, but being 6 years old thinking my dad is going to pick me and we’re going to do this fun thing, I doubt I couldn’t help but feel that way. After this phone call it would usually be a few years before I would ever hear from him again. Then I would make the phone call to my other Grandma on my Dad’s side. Every time I would call, I would get the same question, “Have you heard from your dad?” the answer would always be the same, “no”. Then came the part that I never quite understood, she would tell me how I really needed to call him and that I should try and find out where he is. I never quite got why it was my job to do that. I had been in the same place with the same number for 8 years. I did what she said though, as she was an adult, and probably knew better than I did only being 8 years old. I distinctly remember that first phone call I made after his first disappearance for two years. I called the only number I had for him, and he was there. When he got on the phone and realized it was me, you could hear the stammering and embarrassment in his voice. I knew he was looking for reasons and excuses to give me, but being so young and naïve, I didn’t expect them. I was just calling to say hi, I didn’t care about any reasons he had for not seeing me for 2 years, in fact the likeliness that I even missed him in my life was very little. I only thought to call him because Grandma had told me too. He said he wanted to see me, and in fact did come see me. He had grown his hair long and had a big scratchy beard, and I remember telling him, not to come back till he cleaned himself up. He never came back. The next time I would see my Dad was when I was fourteen years old. I can’t recall how he came back into my life then, but he did. He took me to my freshman year father/daughter dance and again sophomore year. He stayed in my life until I was fifteen years old, and then again, the promises of picking me up with a two hour late phone call cancelling. By this time I was over it. I wasn’t angry and I wasn’t sad, I was just so used to him not being in my life that I didn’t notice anything missing. As I got older more details of what was going on started coming out. I found out my father was an alcoholic, and thinking about it now, that probably wasn’t the only problem. My Grandparents still told me the same thing, but with a little more honesty in it. My dad loved me, but he has problems, and he probably loves me enough and cares enough to keep me away from them. I still didn’t need a reason, I didn’t care enough too. About 8 years later I went to visit my Grandma (his mom), and my Aunt (his sister). I was 24 years old. I don’t really think that I was angry, but just felt like I should be, because even though he had no affect on my life whatsoever, he still did wrong and deserved punishment. I was sitting in a restaurant with my Aunt, and I told her that I did not care to ever see my dad again. If someone were to call me tomorrow and tell me he was dead, I probably wouldn’t care much, because what am I losing? Something I never had to begin with? I said that I hoped he didn’t come back into my life until after I had gotten married and had children so he could see what he had missed. I wanted him to feel the regret of what he had did to me. I wanted to tell him how I got married and he was not the one to walk me down the aisle, how I had had children, but he was not one of the first ones to hold them. I felt that was the ultimate revenge. My Aunt, being the good soul she is, said some things that now I can’t remember, but changed my mind for the way I felt about my Dad. I started feeling like what was the point of this negative energy? Does it really get me anywhere? Does it turn back the hands of time and change anything that happened? No it doesn’t and I waste my precious time on something that doesn’t really matter that much to me in the first place. This same year my Grandma on his side passed away. My Aunt had said that she contacted my dad and that he was also there. I think that made my reason for not going even stronger. I wasn’t afraid to see him and it wasn’t that I didn’t want to see him; it was just that I didn’t know what to say to him when I did. It would be awkward and uncomfortable and I just didn’t want to deal with that. She told me that out of the past 10 years that he had been absent from my life, the last 5 he had been sober. It annoyed me that all these years the excuse for him being away was his “problems”, but for the past 5 years he supposedly didn’t have any problems. What was his excuse? I still was at the same house, with the same phone number that I had been at for 24 years. Still being in my forgiving state of mind, I put all this aside. I told my Aunt he could contact me. When he finally did, we met at Denny’s and I remember feeling so awkward, it wasn’t even funny. Imagine going to meet some guy who you barely know, who is way more excited to see you than you are him, and you’re not quite sure what to even talk about. He sits across the table from me and holds my hands and just stares at me. I felt like I was holding a strangers hands and being stared at by some strange guy who I didn’t know. He wanted to explain to me what had happened all these years and why he wasn’t around. I told him, it doesn’t matter; the past is the past and let’s just move forward with our lives. We did this for about 3 years. 3 years ago I called him and left him a message on his phone, and he still has not returned my call. I have decided I’m done. Why do I keep giving this man a chance? I use the term “man” very, very loosely, because he obviously isn’t. Why do I keep letting someone back into my life, who for almost all my life has worked jobs where he gets paid under the table to avoid having to pay for his child? Someone who is so selfish, he doesn’t even bother to find out if his daughter is well. I wonder if he even thinks of me on my birthday, or how he feels on Father’s Day. How long can addiction be an excuse? How can you bring a child into the world and just take off? Does he even think of the repercussions this would have on me? I have decided from this day forward that he is no longer welcome in my life. He has gotten too many get out of jail free cards and each time he takes them for granted. As far as I’m concerned I lost my father when I was 17 years old, when my Grandpa passed. To the people who have been in my life and been unfaltering, you deserve a special thank you from the bottom of my heart. To my Grandfather who even though was retired, gave that up to raise me and give me the life I have and made me the person I am today. No amount of words could ever express how grateful I am for him, and how lucky I was to have him. To Aja’s dad, Jeff, who not only stepped in to be a father figure for her after her dad took off, but was integral in keeping me on track during my teen years after my Grandfather had passed. He had no children of his own, but had to deal with two wild teenage girls, and he did a fantastic job doing it. And last but not least my stepdad Milton, who didn’t have the pleasure of having to deal with me, but puts up with my sister’s crap on a daily basis, with a smile on his face…for the most part. These men are real men, and stepped in and took care of children like they were their own without batting an eye. The world is absolutely a better place with men like these.