When I was little, Father's Day was for my Grandpa. I didn't have a dad, but I had Grandpa and I loved him more than anything. Then, something happened and we weren't as close as we once had been. Father's Day was still for Grandpa though. I still didn't have a dad, but I still had Grandpa. Then as I got older, I still didn't feel as close to my Grandpa as when I was little, but things were better than they were in my teenage years. Father's Day didn't mean a whole lot. I don't even remember if I made the effort to go "home" for the cook out that we had every year. I'm guessing I rolled through for a minute but I doubt I made any concerted effort. By this time, I was completely self-absorbed in my own life and doing my own thing.
And then my Grandpa died. And with it, Father's Day. I didn't have a dad, and now I didn't have a Grandpa anymore. So what was the point?
See, I never had a dad. My dad wasn't absent from my life... he was non-existent. For the first decade or so of my life, I assumed my dad was the same dad that my brother and sister had. He was an alcoholic who spent his days in various states of oblivion. He never came around on any of our birthdays or Christmas or Father's Day or, well, ever. When I was about 10, my mom pulled me aside and told me that my dad was not the same as my brother and sister's. She had been split from their dad and got together with this other guy ("Ed"). She loved him and all, but found out he was married (separated, really, according to her. But it was 1969 and divorce was not common like it is now). She broke it off with him, and found out she was pregnant with me. She never told him that she was pregnant, and hid the pregnancy under baggy sweaters until she went into labor.
Only immediate family was told about me those first few days... I guess they wanted to make sure I wasn't going to be given up for adoption before everyone got the news. But she kept me and there I was. We never talked about my biological father again, not for a really long time. I was always curious, but I felt like if I asked any questions, it would be mistaken as some kind of slight against my mom or my grandparents and the sacrifices they made to keep me and raise me. So I kept my questions to myself.
In my mid-to-late 20s, my mom started dating this guy Ed. In what seemed like a heartbeat, she was living with him. The house my great grandfather built and the one I grew up in was being taken by the bank, Grandpa was moving into a retirement home and mom and Ed were getting their own apartment.
Ed was... well... a piece of work. Another alcoholic, one who was in and out of jail SO many times, mostly for drunk driving. He was inappropriate, making overt sexual comments and innuendos all the time. I could go on and on and on about all the ways in which he was an awful excuse for a human being, but suffice it to say that no one in our family liked him.
Fast forward to Mother's Day one year. I organized a family dinner to celebrate the day: me, my brother, my sister and her family, my uncle (my mom's brother) and his family, my mom and Ed. Once everyone arrives, my mom makes her BIG announcement: She has a new daughter!
See, years and years ago, before Ed went off to Vietnam, he impregnated a woman who gave birth to a daughter. She told him he was a father; he abandoned the woman and the child. The child, now an adult with a daughter of her own and living in California, tracked down Ed, made contact, and was coming out to Green Bay to meet her daddy. Coincidentally, this meeting was scheduled for Father's Day weekend and my mom would like to cordially invite all of us to come out and welcome the newest members of our family.
None of us reacted well. It was the quietest family dinner in the history of the world. We all went our separate ways the moment dinner was over. By the time I got home, my mom was on the phone having her usual "woe-is-me, I'm-such-a-victim" moment, and I lost my cool. I gave her one chance, and one chance only, to back away from the door she was about to open with me. Instead of leaving well enough alone, she not only opened the door but she ripped the door off its hinges.
I went IN on her! How could she be so insensitive to her own children, especially me? I mean, at least my brother and sister knew who their father was. For over 30 years, she had kept who my father was secret. He never knew she was pregnant, so didn't know he had a daughter in the world. She stole over 30 of my birthdays and more than 30 of his birthdays and Christmases and summer vacations and my high school graduation and my college graduation away from me and MY father. And now she expected everyone to accept "her new daughter" with open arms? After this pathetic excuse of a man had knowingly abandoned his own child? Knowingly and purposely missed out on all of those birthdays and Christmases and summer vacations and graduations with his daughter?
Over the course of the next few months, I had several conversations with my mom about my biological father and who he was. Each conversation offered a different story about who he was, how they met and why his identity was kept a secret. Each story was not thought out very well though, and I exposed all of her lies. So many lies that I can't believe anything she says. Ever. About anything. But based on the last story I got, my biological father was an only child, born to a mother and a father who were both themselves only children. And they're all dead.
So here we are, another Father's Day that is just another day to me. I don't have a dad, and I don't have a Grandpa anymore.
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