Even when you don't really know them..it's still hard.
Jul 14 '00
I know this is going to start out sounding like many other opinions written here at the Epinions website on this issue. And maybe it is...but it's MY story...so it's different.
I grew up without a Dad. Or at least I thought I did. I never saw him, never knew him, never even knew he existed. No, he wasn't a deadbeat Dad. He tried. My Mom wouldn't let him. On birthdays and at Christmas, gifts would be sent and returned unopened. I never knew about them though. Cards were sent and never shown to me. Not until much later.
Finally, thanks to a nosey little friend of mine, when I was 10, I found out that, yes indeed, I DID have a father. Wow! I was "normal"!!! I remember that day just like it was yesterday. Mom had just picked my friend and I up from her house. She was going to spend the night at our home. I guess my friend and I had been talking about fathers or something that day...that part I don't really remember. Suddenly, with no warning at all, my friend asks my Mother, "Mary...who is Michelle's father? You know...she really ought to know." I think my Mom's jaw hit the floor. I'm surprised she stayed on the road! Mom said something like, "We'll discuss that later." or something to that effect.
The next day-Sunday I think-we called him. I remember Mom talking first...telling him that someone wanted to talk to him. I got on the phone and my Dad and I talked for hours. For the very first time in my 10 years of growing up, I had a Daddy.
From that day on we wrote letters and talked on the phone often. He lived in Arizona and I lived in Maine. That made it pretty hard to get together as often as we would have liked to.
That summer...the summer of 1985, my Mom and I took a bus from Bangor, Maine to Phoenix, Arizona. I met my Dad for the first time face to face. We had such a great time...getting to really know each other. He was really a great guy. Not a millionaire, not even a thousandaire, but he was my Dad and I loved him.
By then, he was remarried and had two boys. Not his, but his wife's children. Brothers!!!!! Yippee!!!!
That was one of the best summers of my life...followed by the next three. For the next 3 years I went to Arizona each summer. I bowled, I swam, I played, I had so much fun and to make it all even better I had my Dad.
The last summer I went there...the summer of 1988, I remember very vividly. I was Daddy's little girl while I was there. I was special and I knew it. I always knew I was special to my Mom, but I didn't know that about my Dad. During those summers I finally knew...he really did love me. He really didn't want to be without me. That's just the way it happened.
I went home at the end of that summer. I remember being at the airport with Dad...sitting in one of those little restaurants, just talking. Daddy to daughter. That would be the last time I would see him.
Mom married a wonderful man during this time. He raised me and loved me and still does just as much as he would if I was really his. Eventually he adopted me and I took his last name. The night my dad died, they were both gone to a meeting and I was home alone.
My grandfather from Arizona called that night. He asked for my Mom. I KNEW something was wrong. Why didn't he want to talk to me? He said to have my Mom call as soon as she got home. Mom was pretty late getting home that night and he called a few more times that night. Still only asking for her. Being the melodramatic teenager I was I thought of the worst automatically. Unfortunately I was right.
My father died that night of a cerebral aneurysm. I had only known him...and loved him for three years and he was gone. I cried until I just couldn't cry anymore. The tears were gone.
I remember making the plans to go the funeral (which was, of course, in Arizona). That's really all I remember. I don't remember much of the funeral except for walking up to the coffin and kissing my Dad good-bye.
And I remember everyone crying.
For some reason I didn't cry after that. I kind of blocked the whole thing out of my mind. The next time I cried about my Dad being gone was a few months ago. My two and a half year old daughter walked up to his picture and said, pointing to it, "That's my Papa!" Suddenly for the first time in 12 years I burst into tears. She was right...it was her Papa. One that, I'm sure, loves her very much.
I don't really know why I cope with death the way I do. I guess, in a way it just works for me. I don't block out the memories, just the pain of the loss.
Since then I have had a Grandfather and a Grandmother die. Same thing. I cry at the funeral...maybe for a few days afterwards. Then that's it. Sometimes I even feel guilty. I should mourn more, shouldn't I? I should feel grief longer than I do.
I remember after the funeral no one wanted to talk about it. Or about him...I DID! I didn't want people to forget him and what he meant to me. I think that's my biggest advice on how to cope. Talk, talk, and talk some more. It helped me to overcome my grief I think. Knowing that he knew how much I loved him helped too. He knew. I know he did.
I didn't know my Dad like some other children do, but I loved him every bit as much, and losing him was (I think) just as hard. It hurt...it still does. I miss him.
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Epinions.com ID:
mrstozier3
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Member: Michelle Tozier
Location: Patten, Maine
Reviews written: 25
Trusted by: 20 members
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