Day 317 Project 365

68

Walking into Tesco today someone must have had a major silly string fight just outside because it was everywhere…

I remembered it’s my Dad’s birthday today… he is 68.

It’s been almost 3 years now that I talked to him last time… it was in late February 2009 and I had been really sick. I had lost 60 pounds in weight and I knew I was going to have to have surgery. It ended up being my gallbladder but at the time I didn’t know what it was. The pain was excruciating and I was worried.

My dad and I hadn’t talked for about two years before that but at the beginning of 09 we talked a few times.



When I was little he was a truck driver and would be away from home for weeks at a time. Then he got a job still driving trucks but he would be home most of the weekends… he got that job when I was about 12 or so.

We were always close when I was a kid…when he would come home we would go to Dairy Queen and play Pac Man for hours. It was our fun! When I got older it turned into dinner of a Friday evening when he would get home. We would talk and catch up on that weeks events.

When he married my step monster he changed… he wasn’t the same person at all. I tried to do as much as I could for him and for her. I never said anything bad about her… I only wanted my dad to be happy and I was delighted he had found someone to spend his life with. Even though he changed after he met her I don’t blame her. It’s his choice what he does he’s a grown person.  We are all responsible for ourselves.


But…

In the time that’s passed I have come to realize some important things about him I never thought about.

I wonder now why he never got a job where he was home all the time with me and my mom. Also he knew what problems she had and how crazy she could be and he had to know how she treated me… but still he chose to leave me there with her and never accepted the responsibility of his family.

He was wrong and had every chance to be right. He just chose to be wrong… like now.

I am his only child…

Talking to your child should never have to be a choice… I did nothing to him. in fact the last time we talked he promised we would always talk and never drift apart again.

I thought he would ring me for my birthday a few weeks after we talked in February and check on me as I had been so sick… but he never did and now I know.

I know the people that my parents are.

 I don’t really like them very much anymore. I love them and I wish them the very best. I don’t want anything bad to happen to either of them and I guess they have to do what they think is right. But I don’t agree with them.

Now… it’s been 7 years that I saw my dad last and 3 that I talked to him. I can’t imagine anymore what he looks like and I can’t believe he's almost 70… he doesn’t know anything about me anymore and his biggest loss above everything was not getting to know Michael.

Happy Birthday anyway Dan…