Processing…

Part I

I was 18 years old

at my college advisor’s lavish mansion.

We were meeting with my parents

to get a better understanding of

how to market myself to universities

to guarantee admission.

She asked me many questions

to help me craft a solid personal statement

but the one that seared in my mind was

“Who is your biggest inspiration?”

I responded, “my mother”

and carefully recounted

how inspirational her victory

in the battle against breast cancer was,

my boundless gratitude for

not losing her

and how that inspired me to choose a

clinical research college major

to ease the pain of other families

in the future.

It was the first time I had ever

spoken about the impact of that

experience in my life.

Illnesses like breast cancer metastasize

insidiously, affecting everyone in the family.

I kept thinking about how my family unit

expected me to fill in as their surrogate mother,

being the eldest and a daughter.

I was only 16 when those silent demands arose,

childhood cut short

because the sperm donor who contributed

to my creation was an infant in the skin

of a man.

Couldn’t do laundry, cook a decent meal

or tidy his own house.

Such “woman’s work” was beneath him

even though he also inhabited the dwelling,

even though his marriage partner also worked

full time

and did all of the child rearing.

I remember waking up at 4am

despite going to bed at 12

after doing my homework

to make breakfast and pack lunches

for him and my two brothers.

Felt my body ache and shudder

with overwork and sleep deprivation

but none of them cared because they

weren’t the ones experiencing it.

I’d have to make dinner after school

and be their therapist.

Remember listening to him

complain about how difficult it was

to drive us to school and pick us up daily.

He could opt out of fatherhood when

my mom wasn’t sick and now

the gravity of it all seemed crushing.

Remember him gushing tears about

how he thought my mother had been unfaithful,

fervent attempts at getting me to pity him

instead of the woman on her literal deathbed

without the self-confidence to stand up to him

and neither the privacy with three young children

nor the social circle

to seek love elsewhere.

I often wonder if that was his own

guilty projection.

Remember him questioning the parentage

of their last son

and being too stunned to retort.

Remember thinking this car ride to school

was not the time, or the right place

and I was definitely not the right person

to be coming to with all this.

The shock endured until my last class

was dismissed

and he never spoke of it again.

I broke down crying during

my explanation for the

“Who is your biggest inspiration?”

question.

Face contorted by the force

of my pain as tears flowed freely

for the first time in forever.

In the car ride home

he made fun of my emotions.

Said that I was dramatic

and dying for attention.

My mother’s silence supported him.

Part II

I never had the vocabulary to explain

my frustration,

the burning ire in my soul that our family

dynamics were structured in a way that

we were supposed to worship this man,

this father figure who didn’t understand

or embody the role of a parent,

this disgrace for a life partner who

was only physically, never emotionally present.

The women in my life clung to the fact that

he wasn’t an alcoholic wife-beater.

In my opinion, being emotionally and financially abusive

wasn’t any better.

My paternal grandparents had the same dynamics.

He watched how that relationship stole

his mother’s joy, trapped her in a life of unfulfilled

potential as a homemaker, not by choice,

but by circumstance in a time

when women’s education and

affordable birth control were pipe dreams

yet he chose to replicate the hurt,

willfully passed on the generational trauma.

Ire. Blind rage that comes from

the agony of his betrayal.

I watch the relationships of other fathers

and their little girls

and I grieve for the life I never had,

Dead, superficial connection.

Part III

According to their story,

he met my mother when she was 19

and he was 27

Groomed her into submission.

The women his age didn’t want him

for a reason.

Girls fresh out of high school

became his new prey.

They would be impressed by the fact

that he had a job, a car

and their lack of experience

would make them think it was okay

to take on the conflicting roles of his

mother and lover -

the Madonna/Whore feeding into

his Oedipus complex.

I watched my mother tolerate

years of this.

Put downs in front of her children

about her weight, her hair,

her coping strategies for stress

like binge-watching television.

From my external perspective,

he loved her for what she could provide,

not for who she was

and made sure that her self-worth

became inextricably linked to acts

of service.

A disservice to her humanity.

Watched him

start doing it to me,

commenting on my weight as a

growing teenage girl who got her

wide hips from his gene pool

not out of concern for my health

(which was never at risk

in the first place),

but as a tool to shame,

blaming me for not knowing

how to navigate the pitfalls of

hormonal acne

that diminished the

market value of his property.

Comments about my hairline,

the mirror image of his own,

my brains, my ambition,

my cooking, my cleaning.

Chipping away at my self esteem

so that the crumbs of his validation

would mean so much more.

Made me believe that’s

what fathers were for.

Watched his obstinate refusal

to make improvements to the unfinished house

even though he had the money

simply because my mother was the one asking.

Holes in the ceiling,

leaking rainwater we caught

in buckets.

No hot water or pump for years

when she bought the equipment,

all he had to do was connect it.

Holding her Masters degree

over her head like a shameful object,

spending his comparatively vast

disposable income on useless trinkets that

made the exterior of our house a derelict junkyard,

not caring if the children he helped create

needed school shoes and bookbags.

I watched my mother struggle to

make ends meet.

Effectively a single parent of 3 children

and a husband.

Woke up to arguments most weekends

as she begged him to shoulder some responsibility.

Saw her tears have no effect on

his selfish tyranny.

Listened to him list his meagre

contributions to the household

without listening to her pleas

to shoulder more weight because

her back was breaking.

Watched her implore him to stop

doing simple things like

not refilling the ice tray,

not peeing outside of the toilet bowl

and leaving solitary dishes in the sink

for his “maid service” to clean up.

Watched his lack of respect

for his partner manifest

as repeated, purposeful infractions.

Watched my mother rationalize it

as him being “too old to change” and

give up because his way

was the way things had always

been done.

Watched him take credit

for the academic success of my brothers and I

when he contributed so little to it.

No life-sustaining food, words of encouragement

or financial support for external tutoring.

The occasional drop off to extra lessons

had to be requested when he was in

the right mood and could easily be rescinded.

And when he brought us home

we were expected to shower him with our

praises for doing his fatherly duties,

the literal bare minimum.

I knew it was wrong

and any attempts to point out

the unfair burden on my mother

were met with “stop disrespecting your father”.

The veracity of my feeble frustration

lost in the noise of maintaining

subjugation.

They made me think I

was the crazy one.

Watched him put on a front

as a man of God

to the people of our village and

our Episcopal congregation,

watched him give the best versions

of himself to everyone but us.

Wondered if they would ever see through

his mask to the cold, calculating layer

underneath,

to the person who never says “I love you” unless it’s to impress others

with his perfect parenting,

the person who never shows their love

in their actions.

Part IV

Yet, he’s still my father.

I distanced myself from him to process

the wounds of childhood,

to put words to my experiences

and to give myself the grace to

feel my emotions

but I feel the longing for connection

drawing me back in.

The longer I stay away,

the more the bad times seem hazy

and I think just maybe he’s changed.

He turns the pleasant facade on me

in our occasional interactions

and I start to question the past.

Was it all delusions?

Was it really not that bad?

Was I never unhappy, unloved and

made to feel unworthy?

Now that I’ve found the words

and the economic independence I craved,

I know that my next steps should be

telling him how I feel.

Respectfully outlining the ways in which

he has hurt me

and giving him the chance to listen,

to share his version.

I’m trying to lower my expectations for

reconciliation and work through my

fear of defensiveness and invalidation.

I’ve run away from conflict for too long

because of conditioned trepidation

of physical retaliation, verbal abuse

or financial control

but I can’t keep

holding on to this resentment.

Bottling it up inside

is eating me alive

I can’t move on with the past

infecting my present.