As we get to the homestretch of Father’s Day, the emails from women keep coming in. Boatloads of emails from women writing about their fathers. Most are damaged. A few are amusing. I can’t run them all, unfortunately, but thanks a lot for writing in.
This one stood out for me, because apart from it being heartfelt and brutal, she didn’t let the bitterness cloud her story and it’s written with a cheek I like. Plus it ends well (kinda) and deep down we all love stories that end well, don’t we?
By Wilma
I was 17 when I found out my dad was an unfaithful husband. Fortunately, I didn’t walk in on him with another woman. No. That only happens in the movies.
My curiosity led me to this bitter truth; a truth that later changed our family; permanently. It was an easy puzzle to piece together. A text. There was a text on my mom’s phone from him that read: “Hi honey, I miss you so much….” Now, if your parents are anything like mine – especially in terms of age – then you too would smell a rat if you saw such a text on your mom’s phone. That, plus I was a perceptive kid. The text was in my mom’s inbox… But it was also in my dad’s inbox. No brainer, right? Right! My siblings didn’t think so. They missed this and the 7,000 other signs that followed. Signs like my mom never saying, “I love you too,” to my dad. Or the new book that sat on their bed-stand: “His Needs. Her Needs; Building an Affair-Proof Marriage.” Or the conversation between my dad and his colleague during a family trip to the Coast where his response on the phone was: “No, I am travelling with my wife.” Of course the give-away was my mom’s body language. Cold as ice.
They moved out. My siblings. I was then left to deal with the edible silence that filled our home… sorry, house. Pretense was no longer a cup of tea for Mr. & Mrs. Not any more anyway. After four to five months of pin-drop silence, my mom decided she had had just about enough of my dad’s bullshit. It was time to leave. She had a plan. A plan that she ran by my siblings. She never ran it by me though; never mind I lived with her, my father and the silence for months.
It was hilarious and a tad bit annoying how surprised my siblings were. I still wonder how they missed the signs. Anyway, my mom’s plan was to leave and then send me a text to tell me she had left. You see, she was going to leave me with my father. She never left. My mom. I think it’s because she took time to come up with a plan. Seldom do women with exit plans actually leave. One just walks out. But this is not about exit plans. It’s about my dad.
I should hate him. At least I know that much; and for years I did. Actually, I hated things about him. I hated his guts. Hated the husband he was to my mother. I hated how impressionable he had made me. I hated that he forgot that “Girls marry their fathers.” I absolutely hated that he didn’t try to hide is infidelity. He wore it proudly. I mean his colleagues knew about his chic on the side. Not his boys. His colleagues. I hated all those things about him but I never came around to hating him.
I think it’s huge to hate your father… or is it dad? It’s really the same difference to me. Both are men. I didn’t get around to hating my father for many reasons. One is because my mother was going to leave me with him. It was going to be just the two of us, well, three if you count silence. It doesn’t make sense, it never did. But that’s the thing about daddy-daughter relationships. They do not make perfect sense or any sense sometimes. They are defined by a love that exists beyond disappointment & heartache, and tears & infidelity because even though my dad left me vulnerable and fearful of commitment, he is still the man who calls me when it starts to rain to find out if I have a way of getting home. He is still the man who never missed PTA meetings, the man who cheered me on and the man whom I got all my writing from… And above all, he is still the man who I dream will walk me down the aisle, one sweet day.
So, you see, even if he was/is an imperfect husband, he has been a decent father/dad. And for that he too deserves to be celebrated on Father’s Day…. Happy Happy Happy Father’s Day Papa. I love you.
P.s. To all the men out there… Happy Father’s Day.
Remember this: “The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” Theodore Hesburgh