“I have fought my fight, I have run my race.” – ‘Breathe’ by Eluveite
Today is my late father’s birthday, the second one since his untimely, but not entirely unexpected passing in January 2019. Strangely enough, I’ve been relatively quiet about him, our relationship, or how I’ve been since his death. I figured today was an appropriate enough day to commemorate his memory and share my experiences since.
I started a new job a little over a month ago, my third job change since he died. A colleague and I were exchanging life stories and in the middle of mine, I paused and realized if I hadn’t traveled the path, I don’t know if I could accept one person/family experiencing that much tragedy and heartache. I don’t necessarily want to unpack 20+ years of emotional baggage in one post and I don’t know if you want to read it, especially now amidst pandemic protocol.
He had very dark secrets he was pretty good at concealing from me, until he no longer wasn’t. I remember being in fourth grade and slowly realizing the charade Dad tried to entertain was just that a charade. Around this same time, I learned what a drug addict was and what drug dependency looked like. He eventually realized I had caught on to his story and he had lost a hook, line, and sinker. This would be ground zero for the rest of our relationship.
It wouldn’t take much friction between us to spark a fire. Our fights were ugly and violent and I as aged, they got worse. And like most fires, they would spread; spread to other’s in the house. Particularly, my mom. She never deserved any of what she was dealt. Any of it. Even with some of the poor choices she made, nothing could justify what she endured. As I type this out, I’ve hit delete about six times because thinking about what she lived through breaks my spirit.
At this point, you’re probably asking why there was no intervention. I wish I had an answer. People knew what was going on in our house, people knew about Dad’s nefarious activities. But nothing happened. Even when he was arrested when I was in junior high, he didn’t serve any jail time, he was just sentenced to rehab. Wish it had worked, but it didn’t.
Rehab might have been a great solution had we been able to change our surroundings after he left. We lived in a very rural county in Iowa and drugs were a problem–still are–and with a limited amount of population, he never got out of the social circles that led him down such a destructive path in the first place. Had we moved away from the farm and lived somewhere more urban where we didn’t know people, he might have had a chance. Doubtful, but it is a nice dream.
I realize I’ve painted this monstrous picture of Dad and it’s slightly unfair and not the entire reality. People who knew him before the drugs ruined his brain recount how he was the nicest man you could know and do just about anything he could for a stranger. Many of the kids I went to school with had parents who went to school with my dad and they would tell stories about how Dad was the kind of guy who would beat up bullies, especially boys who picked on girls.
He loved championing the underdog. He used to be a real scrappy dude. It’s quality I think about and smile. Everyone loves an underdog and despite Dad’s really shitty characteristics, he seemed to charm everyone. He would enrapture them with stories of things he witnessed and lived through. Occasionally, it would border on tall tale or at least feel like a tall tale, but portions of his life were things out of tall tales; just mine looks like a tragic novel.Once I moved out of the house, the physical violence between us ceased and the emotional violence raged. We would try to have small civil conversations but they always ended with him screaming atrocities at me and me in a pile of tears. We had brief moments of peace and bonding, but they never lasted.
Our last phone call will be a moment I treasure the rest of my life. Again, it feels like a plot device. I was having an extremely bad day (a bad fight with a former friend that person could be a whole other blog post) and out of the blue on my lunch–Dad called. He NEVER called me, ever. Furthermore, he APOLOGIZED with sincerity. For the first time in 30 years (at the time) I heard the man sincerely apologize. He told me he was proud of me in spite of everything between us. He told me he loved me and for the first time I could recall he gave me true fatherly advice about the situation I was dealing with. Our conversation ended pleasantly and I was hopeful about the future.
A couple weeks after that phone call he texted me. Hell, I didn’t know he even knew HOW to text. He had wished me a happy birthday and reminded me once again, his high school football team was nicknamed the Dirty 30. His football stories always put a smile on face, even when things nasty between us.
My favorite story was how a player from the rival team had done something dirty after there was a flag on the play and game play was stopped. So in true Dad form, turned around a punted the player in the forehead, knocking him out for the rest of the game. Thekicker was later on as adults the guy Dad had kicked had come up to our town’s Firemen’s Valentine’s Day Dance to talk to Dad. I was probably 7-10 years old. I am not exactly sure. For those unfamiliar with Firemen’s Valentine’s Day Dances, it was a dance hosted by our local volunteer fire department. I am pretty sure it was to raise money for the department. I am not 100% because by the time I was old enough to attend, I moved away from my hometown.
Those texts and phone call are the last communication I would have with my Dad. Life unfortunately got very busy for me as I was dealing with a lot of stress from the job I had at the time. There had only been three people on staff and one had been terminated; leaving me and my manager to run the place. December 2018 each of us had only had 4 days off the entire month. I had zero energy for anything or anyone.
Prospects for 2019 looked promising despite my pure exhaustion. Nick & I had a wonderful year full of so many incredible moments: Europe for the first time, I met one of my heroes, Europe again, and many more. We were excited because more adventures were in store and they were, just not the adventures we expected.
Dad was admitted to the hospital on January 4th, 2019 and then 10 agonizing days later, I made the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my life. I turned off his life support. Those 10 days were some of the most emotionally jolting days of my life. I will chronicle that journey in a future post.
After he died, my brain broke. Death and grief change a person, but this was different in a way I can’t quite explain. I had been through tragic loss before, my sister’s angelversary is two weeks from today. I am no stranger to loss and to pain.
The best way I can explain it is, I stopped fully processing emotion. If you know me personally, you know that I feel everything with everything have from laughter to sadness and everything in between. No emotion is left unexpressed. I just stopped. Music stopped being enjoyable, things stopped being funny. I was definitely grieving but not in the ” I am sad” kind of grief. If I tried to feel anything, it became too much and I would start to drown in my intrusive thoughts.
The intrusive thoughts stemmed from the fact of how much there would be to resolve with him gone. Mom at the time still lived on the farm and my grandmother can’t stand my mother so we had to act fast to get Mom off the farm to avoid further problems.
Ah the farm. The location of my childhood home. A dilapidated, needed condemnation much sooner than it did trailer. Five people squished into a 3 bedroom home doesn’t really work. The place was in disrepair from lack of maintenance (or half-assed maintenance) and littered with violent handiwork. It was so bad, we were never allowed to have friends over. (Probably because their parents may have reported it, but I doubt that since no one ever said anything.)
So I knew when I went to the farm last April to help Mom move out and sort through belongings, it was going to be bad, but I cannot explain the mayhem and the madness I witnessed walking into my childhood home for the first time years. The fact my mother felt she could have stayed there blows my mind. The place was the physical manifestation of mental illness and belonged on Hoarder’s or something.
However, it wasn’t destruction or disaster of the trailer overwhelming me. No, it was the inevitable removal and demolition of the place. My childhood address and phone number would cease to exist. Thirty plus years of lives were lived in that space, someone lived and died. How could it all just be erased? I couldn’t process it.
After our trailer had been torn out and hauled away.
Additionally, I was going to have to teach my mom how to live on her own. Dad had taken care of everything for the last 30 years. So overnight, I had taken on a parental role over my mom. And when you’re someone since the age of 10 insisted you will not have children, it messes with your mind. I can confirm this entire experience has further solidified my decision to not have kids, in case you were curious.
There was a whole host of other problems I was trying to navigate in the midst of this mess. Problems I had before Dad died, but was forced to start unpacking as a result. Let’s mix in job instability, preexisting mental health issues and it’s a magic potion. One that magnifies calamity.
In the process of trying to get my mother stable and my head above water, I drowned. Not physically or literally, but emotionally and mentally. I spiraled out of control. I opened a bunch of credit cards and shopped until every cent was spent.
Credit cards with a part time job and tastes like mine are just an awful combination. Did I know better? Subconsciously, but I couldn’t recognize what I was doing at the time. I also thought I was going to be getting an hours promotion at my job and didn’t. I try not to plan my life on uncertainties or at least try to have contingency plans in case shit derails (which it usually does in my life.) Instead I broke every single one of my rules because I needed something besides the mess in my mind.
There was a moment about six months ago, where I told my mom she needed to figure it out. I couldn’t do it, I had to take care of myself and the wreckage I was leaving in my wake. I felt hypocritical lecturing her on budgets and the importance of planning and here I was a fucking mess. So I stopped. I stopped checking in. I stopped talking to her. I saw her once in that six months and it was to go to a funeral. Oh the irony.
Beginning of this year I made a commitment to myself to get my head and finances under control. So far I’ve been doing pretty well. There have been deviations to my plan, but overall I am still on track where I need to be. The last major hurdle I fought with was the one year anniversary of Dad’s passing.
Nick & I go on a cruise every year called 70,000 Tons of Metal and besides our European Excursions, it is the best vacation we take all year. This year the date format had altered from previous iterations and it allowed us to take time off ahead of the sailing and not use any extra time had we not gone down early. The thing for me was the dates of our vacation correlated to the same dates I spent in the University of Iowa Hospital with Dad.
The dichotomy was strange. Should I be happy, should I be sad, what emotion am I supposed to feel right now? I really did my own thing on the boat this last time around and I am really proud of how I spent my time. It helped distract me in a way that was healthy and didn’t revolve around me swiping a card.
With my head back on a little more tightly (let’s be frank here–it’s never going to be tightened all the way down again), I have finally started communicating with my mom more and started helping her again. My plan has had a few deviations so I am still working on things, but I am in much better shape and have a light at the end of my tunnel.
My emotional trauma and baggage still need unpacked, but for now I am content with burying my head into helping my mom and learning new skills for work.
I missed out on an opportunity to rebuild a relationship with my dad and it might be my only regret that I have. I am extremely thankful his last words to me were ‘I love you.’ I know a lot of people in my position do not always get that kind of resolution. More exceptions to the rules.
Many people are not going to be happy with how much I aired in this narrative. I don’t really care. There isn’t anything you can say to me at this point that hasn’t been said to me before. It’s fine if you’re not happy with it, I can’t say I’ve always been about the shit that’s happened–but here we are.
I’ve fought and I’ve ran. I will continue to always fight for myself and my survival. Surviving is one thing I do know how to do. I’ve learned to run head on instead of away. One day I’ll finally be able to breathe because I’ll be in a place I can call home.