I don't know why I miss my dad.

[sadenni]

A week or so ago I posted that my father died of a heart attack.

 

His involvement in my life was sporadic at best, and to be quite honest, he wasn't a good husband to my mom or father to my siblings and me. He was physically/verbally abusive to all of us, especially my mom. He cheated on her many times and remarried his wife while he was still married to my mother. He more or less disowned my older brother because of his autism. When I was 8, he told me he was going to the gas station one night and didn't come back for three months. When he returned, he took all of the living room furniture and a lot of other household possessions. He didn't even want custody of us. We struggled, often times eating ramen noodles for dinner because that's all we could afford. I needed social work and my sister needed counseling for the pain it caused. My childhood was quite bad and I try to suppress certain memories because they are too hard to think about. He wasn't involved much in my teen years or early adulthood - and it made things easier for me. I didn't have to work through the resentment I had toward him or his wife because they weren't around.

 

The last year of his life was rough. He had two strokes in February of 2012 and had been recovering for a year. I hadn't seen or spent time with him for ages, so to visit him at the hospital was difficult and sometimes confusing for me. I put aside whatever anger I had and helped him as much as I could. I didn't view him as my absentee father - he was a very sick man and I wanted to help. He was sweet and endearing and everyone he knew at the hospital/nursing homes loved him. His wife, who I dislike, was there often. I put on a smile and stayed cordial with her because I didn't want him to be upset. I didn't ask him about the problems we had growing up because I wasn't sure that he had the cognition to understand what I asked of him. Now he is gone and I'm hurt by it. Why am I so hurt over someone who caused us so much pain?

[Gimpyrks]

sadenni, i am sorry to hear about your dad passing. You miss your dad because he is your dad and your flesh and blood.

 

I haven't talked to my dad in 10 years, but I know for a fact that if I heard that he had died tomorrow I would be heart broken and I would shed many tears for him. When an absent parent is alive (at least for me) you always have that big chance that he or she will change ways and be the parent he/she always needed to be, but when that person passes away that chance is gone forever.

 

Don't be angry with yourself for missing him, you have every right to mourn over that loss.

[sadenni]

Thank you, gimpyrks. I lived most of my life without him, so I always figured his passing wouldn't bother me as much as it does now. I remember seeing him the day he passed - he looked like he was asleep. It was so hard seeing the nurses take his body away.

[Seraphim]

Those of us who are very loving love those who have hurt us. There is really no other way to explain it. I love my father too even though he is being horrible to our entire family. He has been estranged to me pretty much most of the last 22 years. We only see him sporadically. Maybe twice a year.