He sits next to me, and after 29 years of being my father and not always playing the role I might add, he still can't say it, admit to it, embrace it, apologize for it, see it or hear it.
"IT," being most of his actions.
The rationale he creates for his behaviors in the past has only gotten worse over the years. There is an excuse for everything. Everything he kicked in 1985. Everything he threw in 1991. Everything he left in 2000.
He sat on my couch for the first time in ten years with little forgiveness, remorse, self-reproach or sadness. He did admit to having regrets. That's a step. But, not a step in the right direction. No complaints and no regrets is my motto. "All you give is all you get," goes the song. I will admit that just the fact that he wanted to talk this candidly about the past and the present is his way of giving all he can in order to get back all that he has wanted from his son throughout our life and relationship. I am not overlooking the leaps and bounds he has made as a person since the divorce, since my coming out.
"I know I got out a hand a few times, Clem....but...I wouldn't call that abuse." He says to me facing forward as I sit to his left looking right at him. If he really believed he didn't abuse me (and my brother) wouldn't he be able to look me square in the eye and say it with confidence? I didn't even bring up the topic. He did. How did we get here? He asked if there was anything about my childhood that still affected me. I talked about all the financial hardships we faced and the way we dealt with them as a family still has an affect on me now. He took this sharp turn himself. He wanted to talk about this part of my childhood. He was still haunted by my childhood. Before jumping up off the couch to explode, I realized this. He does know, somewhere deep inside his mind and/or heart, that he was abusive. He does know it shouldn't have happened. He does take some of the blame. Before I began my tirade on the meaning of abuse and who can decide what is considered abuse, I took into account how difficult it must be for a father who wants his sons to love him in a way they never have to sit and fully accept blame and call "IT" abuse. It's an nasty word. It's an ugly misdeed.
But, I told him. I told him that was exactly what "It" was. You did abuse me...us.
I could have sat on that couch and given him specific examples. I could have used the most horrific ones. The ones that left spider vein bruises across both of my buttocks. The ones that sent me flying over the loveseat. The ones where my head came close to cracking the pavement while I humiliatingly pissed my pants at 12 yeas old. But I didn't. I didn't need to. He didn't need to hear it. He knew. He knows the times. He mentioned the time Cole and I disappeared to the creek to play and shouldn't have. He mentioned the time I begged to come in from the rain with my sore shoulder and I just couldn't throw (didn't want to throw) another pitch.
He didn't say he was sorry. He said he regrets "some" of what he did to me...us. I realized that if I want to continue to have a relationship with my father, if I want to send him into the afterlife with no resentment and anger, if I want to make the most of the last half of his life on earth with me, I was going to have to forgive him without an apology. I have grown used to this throughout my life. It wasn't something new I had to do. I had forgiven him for each instance when they happened and he didn't say sorry. He might have said the words back then but they didn't come from him. Mom would always be standing right beside him coaching the next phrase out of his mouth...
"Tell the boys your sorry," she would coax.
"I'm sorry boys." He would say mechanically.
"Tell the boys you love them," mom would encourage.
"I love ya." He would mumble.
He still gargles those words to this day. But, I know that he does indeed love me. I love him too. I know that he is sorry. I forgive him too. Some things are just known. They don't need to be said to be known. I would love to hear 'I am sorry' someday. But, I don't NEED to hear it in order to forgive him. I don't NEED two little words to move on in my life. I don't NEED those words in order to patch the remaining holes in the tattered and torn relationship between us.
I think, maybe, that is unconditional love? When you don't need anything from the other person and you can love them wholly and fully? Maybe? When there isn't one or two little requirements you need to meet in order to share my love with you? Is this close to what unconditional love is? Maybe.
Maybe it's just between me and my Dad.
There's more to the visit to come.
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2 comments:
I don't know you but feel the need to hug you. Thanks for sharing.
I will never hear those words from my mother, either, or from my father, who sat idly by and watched in order to protect his own skin.
But, I'll be 40 this year and at some point I decided that I was forced to give them the first 17 years of my life, I won't sign over the rest.
We hae a decent relationship now, on the kind of level that you can have a relationship with them. Once I stopped looking for more from them than they could give, then the vise loosened from around my own heart and I could just let it be what it was.
My sister has not been so lucky. She refuses to really look at what went on and she keeps flying them to her house for vacations, hoping that my mother will morph into the mother in her head. Never happen.
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