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Diaryland is calling.....
I miss my dad
01/27/2002 - 11:35 p.m.
When I was a little little boy, my dad died. I mean little - like 2 and a half little. I might have been 3 and a half. I should probably know which it was, but I don't.
I don't remember him well. I don't remember him at all, in fact, unless you count the memory I have of a man standing in the window of an apartment we lived in, looking out at the late afternoon sun. That's probably my dad. Knowing the other circumstances surrounding that memory, it pretty much has to be him.
I don't remember my dad, but I remember things that happened when he was still alive, and I remember things that happened right after he died. It's pretty obvious, therefore, that a lot of the reason I don't remember him directly is because his death was so traumatic for me.
I loved my dad. He meant a lot to me. I miss him.
That doesn't sound like much of a thing to say. It sounds like it should be just about the easiest thing in the world to say. But it isn't. For years and years and years, I thought my dad was of no importance to me at all.
When I was a kid, classmates and friends would occasionally ask me, "What's it like not having a dad?" The only answer I could give was to ask, "What's it like having one?" To me, it was just the natural state of affairs. If people asked me if I missed him, I would say, "No. I don't remember him, so there is nothing to miss."
I really believed that in those days.
That went on until I was about 25. That year, a lot of things changed for me. The biggest change was that I moved in with my girlfriend, who at the time was the great love of my life. I thought things were going to be perfect. I thought we were going to be astonishingly happy together. I thought I was with the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
I thought wrong. I was very angry. I was unhappy. I was no fun to be around. I couldn't deal with her. I couldn't deal with my job. I didn't like anyone or anything.
My girlfriend really loved me. She thought very highly of me. She went out of her way to care for and support me. In so many words, she told me that I was great, that she admired and loved me, that she supported me and cared about what happened to me. And as she said those things, inside, I kept saying "Don't love me. Don't support me. Don't be good to me."
This was very troubling. What was wrong with me that I did not want someone to like me? That I resented her for liking me, for thinking that I was a good person? And why couldn't I find my way back to feeling good about her as I had before we moved in together? Why was I being such a jerk?
I couldn't figure this out on my own. I tried, but it all just made me angrier. So I went to see a shrink. I don't know whether he was a psychologist, psychiatrist, what he was. I do know that he was a filthy moron and I'd still like to meet him one more time and wring his scrawny neck. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I went to see him. "Why are you here, young Red?" he asked. "Tell me what troubles you."
"I don't really know how to explain it," said young Red. "I'm just all the time peeved and angry and pissed off and acting like a jerk to this woman I love and I hate my job and I hate my friends and I don't know what to do."
He asked me some history questions, including about my family. I told him about my mom and sister, and the various weird living situations we'd ended up in over the years. He asked me about my dad. I gave him my standard "no memory, no problem" answer.
But something happened. I don't remember exactly what it was - but within 20 minutes of entering his office, I had broken down completely, crying, wailing, shocked - shocked - to discover that one of my core beliefs - as fundamental as that humans breathe air, not water - was a lie.
I may not have remembered my father, but his absence really did mean something to me. More than just something - it meant a lot.
Um. Huh. Wuddya know about that? The shrink said, "Well, come in next week and we'll talk about this further."
"Ok," said young Red, "sure."
Then young Red went home and promptly put the whole issue out of his mind.
Because it was too big. Too hard to deal with. Too frightening.
I went back to see that shrink several times, but never really got any further. He was not very interested in me, and I didn't know how to make him work with me despite his lack of interest. He didn't remember from one session to the next what we'd discussed, he kept trying to push me into group therapy, and he would do odd things like the following:
One day we were discussing my dad, at my insistence, because if I didn't push the topic there, he'd be perfectly happy to talk about whatever the filth I brought up. I started to cry. I reached for the Kleenex box. It was empty. He said, "I'm sorry. The Kleenex box is empty." And sat there.People I tell that story to don't believe it, usually. But it's true.
I've often wondered if he was trying to provoke a response from me with that. I would like to think he was, but the truth is, I don't think so. I think he was just a jerk.
I've also often wished I had stood up and reamed him a new spewhole for being such a vile, cruel, pathetic creep. But I couldn't. The reasons are pretty obvious now - here I was, a young man (actually older than my dad ever got to be), discovering for the first time that he misses his dad and wants him to come home. Here's a shrink, a man in his 50s, looking very fatherly with his grizzled hair and beard, and an obvious paternal figure, and the transference molecules were flying around that room like nobody's business. I was worried that anything I said or did to upset him was going to result in his terminating our therapy, and as poor an excuse for a father as he was, I couldn't risk that.
Of course, implicit rejection is still rejection, and it gets through to even the most hard-headed maroon at some point. Eventually I got tired of dealing with such an unavailable and essentially cruel person, and drifted away from the therapy. Trouble was, I hadn't really gotten any help. Sure, I had this terrible, frightening, intellectual knowledge that my feelings about my dad were much, much stronger and troubling than I had ever imagined, but - I had no idea what to do about them. So I did what I had always done with such troubles - I put them away.
My girlfriend and I - well - we didn't survive as a couple. I tried. At least, I thought I was trying at the time. I loved her. I wanted to give her the love that I had - and I wanted her love back. But part of me was quite certain that if she wanted to give me that love, there was something wrong with her. So it was a pretty troubled relationship. After another couple of years, where we lived apart but stayed a couple, I broke up with her. She stayed with me right through the end and beyond - she put up with a lot, and I can never get over the tenacity she exhibited in trying to keep me from drowning in my own soul. She tried everything she could think of. I sure can't blame her for not figuring out how to turn into my dad.
Over the years, I tried to find other ways to fix the trouble in my soul. Weird hobbies, weird romantic relationships with weird people, other therapists, semi-cultish peer counseling groups.... all the time knowing that I needed to really deal with my dad, somehow, but not knowing how. One therapist was really helping for a while, then a huge crisis appeared in my life, and the therapy became all about dealing with that crisis. That therapy never got back on track. One therapist was so puzzled and disturbed by me that he eventually told me that he didn't know how to help me and that he couldn't even recommend anyone for me to talk to. That was a pretty tough session.
Through it all, I've known intellectually that the big issue is my dad. That I miss him, that I feel abandoned, that I feel responsible for his death (or at least, his absence).....
But it's been impossible for me to really know that this is true - it's all been conclusion and deduction, detective work. "You see, Watson, when I talk about my dad I get all teary-eyed and emotional, so it must be that I feel XXYY." "See, I feel that letting people know that I feel XXYY about my dad is dangerous, so there's obviously something big going on here."
Then, a week or so ago, something happened. For the first time in my life, I was able to say to myself, "I want to talk to my dad. I need his advice. I want to tell him about this thing that happened, and I want to hear what he has to say about it."
I can't do that, of course. But for the first time in my memory, I can feel and know that I want it. Not just be a big smarty and "know" it because the evidence suggests it must be true, but know it because it's engraved in foot high letters across my heart. And I've told someone. And the world didn't end, and nobody died, and other things are still ok.
I. Miss. My. Dad.
Filth, that's hard to write. But for the first time since I was a little boy, I know it's true. And that's just - well. I don't know how to explain it. It's just huge.
No music tonight.
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