Dad
We didn't know each other well. He was 21 when he married Mom, and learned from her rooting around for his birth certificate (needed for his service with the National Guard) that his Mom was actually his aunt. (Seems Grandma never found just the right time to tell him her sister had died when he was just six months old, and his dad wasn't equipped to care for his new son.)
Maybe learning he was adopted made it easier to consent to letting Mom have her way in adopting me, after they'd been married seven years and remained childless. It was her thing, I think. He seemed to think kids belonged to their mother, to be seen on occasion, and rarely heard. I and my sister (five years younger) were to be bathed, fed, and freshly dressed by the time he came home from work. After he had his cocktail and read the paper, we were allowed to come and say hello.
Once a week, he would take us out for dinner at a nice restaurant, where we would be expected to demonstrate the table manners we'd acquired (which silver to use for which course, etc.). Mom loved to tell the story of his embarrassment on the occasion when my sister stood in her chair (she was two, I think) and lifted her dress to show her frilly underpants!
We didn't see enough of him to really notice his absence when mom left him. I was ten. Mom took us off to Grandpa's hunting cabin to live the next 1.5 years, 300 miles north to Beaver Island, MI. It was far enough away that the visits were few and far between.
When I was 13, he did take the two of us on a two-week vacation with his new wife (age 20), her mother, and him. He was an officer in the Guard, then, and we were settled in a cabin in Grayling, to spend our days with the two strange women while he was directing his troops at summer camp. My step-mother and I had a spat and I started hitch-hiking home (then Lansing). Dad spotted me when his driver was taking him home, and not long after he picked me up (driving his own car) and drove in silence the long trip back to Mom and step-dad. It would be five years before I would see him, again.
My teen years were turbulent, but after a particularly hard time, Dad came back into my life and provided room and board with his family so I could "get my feet under me." It was the mid-70s in MI; the economy had people sleeping in cars, and he convinced me to enlist in the Army when I couldn't find work. It was a disaster, and I returned five weeks later with a General Trainee discharge, obtained easily by his personal friendship with my base commander. I was grateful; he was humiliated.
He was angry (and so correct, I learned too late) when I announced I would marry my fiance. Not long after he sat me down and presented me with a black notebook (dossier) that he'd hired a private investigator to compile on the young man. Rather than take heed, I rebelled, and again our paths diverged.
Dad died less than six months later. I married my fiance less than two months after. After less than two years I escaped the physical and emotional abuse, though it would be years before the divorce was final. I went to Tucson to get away, and never went back.
Dad had been right, all along.
If wishes were riches, beggars would ride. There's no point in wishing any different past than the one we selected for ourselves, but I do regret that Dad and I were not closer. Looking back, I would've liked to know him better.
Maybe learning he was adopted made it easier to consent to letting Mom have her way in adopting me, after they'd been married seven years and remained childless. It was her thing, I think. He seemed to think kids belonged to their mother, to be seen on occasion, and rarely heard. I and my sister (five years younger) were to be bathed, fed, and freshly dressed by the time he came home from work. After he had his cocktail and read the paper, we were allowed to come and say hello.
Once a week, he would take us out for dinner at a nice restaurant, where we would be expected to demonstrate the table manners we'd acquired (which silver to use for which course, etc.). Mom loved to tell the story of his embarrassment on the occasion when my sister stood in her chair (she was two, I think) and lifted her dress to show her frilly underpants!
We didn't see enough of him to really notice his absence when mom left him. I was ten. Mom took us off to Grandpa's hunting cabin to live the next 1.5 years, 300 miles north to Beaver Island, MI. It was far enough away that the visits were few and far between.
When I was 13, he did take the two of us on a two-week vacation with his new wife (age 20), her mother, and him. He was an officer in the Guard, then, and we were settled in a cabin in Grayling, to spend our days with the two strange women while he was directing his troops at summer camp. My step-mother and I had a spat and I started hitch-hiking home (then Lansing). Dad spotted me when his driver was taking him home, and not long after he picked me up (driving his own car) and drove in silence the long trip back to Mom and step-dad. It would be five years before I would see him, again.
My teen years were turbulent, but after a particularly hard time, Dad came back into my life and provided room and board with his family so I could "get my feet under me." It was the mid-70s in MI; the economy had people sleeping in cars, and he convinced me to enlist in the Army when I couldn't find work. It was a disaster, and I returned five weeks later with a General Trainee discharge, obtained easily by his personal friendship with my base commander. I was grateful; he was humiliated.
He was angry (and so correct, I learned too late) when I announced I would marry my fiance. Not long after he sat me down and presented me with a black notebook (dossier) that he'd hired a private investigator to compile on the young man. Rather than take heed, I rebelled, and again our paths diverged.
Dad died less than six months later. I married my fiance less than two months after. After less than two years I escaped the physical and emotional abuse, though it would be years before the divorce was final. I went to Tucson to get away, and never went back.
Dad had been right, all along.
If wishes were riches, beggars would ride. There's no point in wishing any different past than the one we selected for ourselves, but I do regret that Dad and I were not closer. Looking back, I would've liked to know him better.
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