Every single time I call my father or talk to 5 out of 6 of my siblings, I wonder why I bother. Today was no different.
Before my mother died I actually tried to have very little contact with my father. I was my mom's POA and I would drive down in the mornings just to help her with her bath or getting dressed or do things for her - things she didn't want my father to do for her. I should also say my mother was the glue that somehow melded all of us different people together. She was our rock - the person each of us turned to - the person who was the only parent who was always there for us - the person who we all would call and let know what was going on in our lives and she in turn passed the information around to the rest of us.
But she passed away and the family fell apart. I question at times whether or not we were really a family in the truest sense of the word to begin with because we all should be there for each other especially in hard times. But no, not my family. My baby sister and I stayed in each other's lives. My brother and 2 other sisters were deep in each other's lives. The middle sister alternated between the split family, still trying to be the peacemaker and take over for my mother.
My father? He started telling strange tales about how he was a part of some secret group of the government and had been for a long time. As oldest I questioned this because if he had this secret job, there sure was no money in said job. We were dirt poor. My mother took in ironing for people and between my mom, me, and the next oldest sister, we would iron for 2-4 hours every night. My mother never really learned to cook so most cleaning and cooking responsibilities were left to me the oldest. My father was never around although him saying it was because of this secret job is a bit much. He read water meters or worked construction or odd jobs or as a short order cook when not teaching.
Although he wasn't physically around most of the time, when he was, it was his way or the highway, no questions asked. He was a tyrannical, narcissistic, angry, physically and emotionally abusive man. It was how he was raised. It was how he raised us. He was an alcoholic on top of that. My mother left him once and he vowed to her to quit the drinking and so we went back. The drinking might have stopped but nothing else did. I think the last time he physically laid a hand on me was when I was 22. I had walked out at age 18 and didn't go back home until I was 22. Ironically I did something (who knows what besides exist) that set him off and he erupted. I think I looked at him square in the eye and said you are never to do that again or I will call the cops. I left.
As I said, I was rarely around my father without my mother around. She intervened. But without her physically here anymore, my relationship with my father deteriorated just a few days after she died. I couldn't seem to be able to do anything right and I took the cowardice way out and just left. I returned for the funeral.
Within 6 months my father took off his wedding ring and began dating. 6 months later he found what he said was the true love of his life. He married her 2 years after my mother's death. At first, she seemed okay. She made my father happy. At the time I found it kind of ironic that a woman who was a widower herself but she never had children would marry a man with 6 children plus 6 spouses, 19 grandchildren, and 3 great grandchildren. For someone who never wanted a family, she sure married into one.
But I digress. She met us in spurts but twice a year we all get together or used to. She seemed to ruin that too. She couldn't tolerate any noise or any kids crying or playing and she couldn't tolerate anyone helping her in the kitchen yet she couldn't handle cooking for us either. So instead of joining in, she would retire to her room and never speak to anyone. This worked. We still managed to get along although the continental divide was drifting further and further apart.
It has now been 6 years since my mother's death and 4 years since my father's remarriage. The peacemaker sister let on last week that my father was having Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas at the house we grew up in. So I called to see if he had tried to call me. Ummmmm no he had not. In the background, his wife was yelling at him, saying if that was me then she wasn't invited and to just hang up. I did it for him. I said goodbye and hung up.
No more family for me. Instead it will be family that is of my heart not my blood. People I choose to allow in my life. This has been a long time coming. Interesting enough, I feel light and more at peace than ever before.
Good bye toxic people who are blood related. Hello friends who are more family to me than my blood family ever thought of being.
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