My father knew it all, or so he’d leave you to believe. His answers to any question never began with “I’m not sure” or “this is what I think” — his opinions were fact. Dare to challenge him and he’d belittle you and ensure you felt wrong even if the initial question could not possibly have a right or wrong answer.
In this overconfidence he seemed immortal, despite his obesity and eventual terminal cancer diagnosis. He who is never wrong, who controls the universe around him with his might, must never die. But, as of last August, a week after my son was born, he left the mortal universe, never to again state fiction as fact. Never again to get so angry in not getting his way, never again to claim the life of yet another too-new electronic object grabbed and flung across the room in rage. Never again to take on the persona of an irritable greek god.
I wanted to connect with my father, but connection was not possible, only the glow of achievement he could claim as his own. He saw me not as my own person, but as an extension of his person — and thus, I always felt like a disappointment, as every minor mistake I made he surely let me know with at best a sigh and a look of why again did I choose to make a mistake?
As the years went on, my value and worth was tied directly to getting married and having children. He never understood what I did for a living (though, to be fair, there are days I don’t either) and although I wanted more than anything for him to be proud of my accomplishments, it became clear he never would be. Had I been a son, maybe this would have been different. But t him, I was his daughter, his daughter who, after coming home from college for the first time, he immediately noted upon picking her up from the airport “you put on a few pounds” or something along those lines — not, how are you or great to see you or welcome home. Just — my how fat you are.
I spent the first half of my life (to date) trying so hard to please him as the perfect daughter and the second half realizing nothing I did would ever be enough. He noted I was a “rebellious” child and saw me as such into adulthood. To this day I still view everything I do with his highly critical eye, and feel no satisfaction in my output unless somehow it meets the impossibly high criteria of what he might think of as worthy of esteem.
Three days before he passed away, we spoke on the phone. He said, in what were his final words to me, that he hopes my son has his gift for math and my husband’s gift for telling stories, with not one mention of what my own traits had to offer. In the weeks prior, he shared three quick stories with me about three times as a child I nearly died (I wish I wrote them down, but one was when I apparently almost ran into a busy street from a parking lot, another, I believe, had something to do with almost putting my fingers in an electrical socket.) These are the stories that, outside of watching baseball, he spent his time thinking in his final days.
Now, perhaps it’s narcissistic on my part to have wanted my father to say I’m proud of you before he passed away — and what closure would that have brought even after so many years of clearly not being enough? In that final call, despite the doctors noting he was not on his formal death bed, I felt the gravitates of an end. He may or may not have hung up before the words “I love you” made their way out of my mouth and across the wires. We never say I love you in my family, so it felt forced, but also true. Because even though that was not the last time we were supposed to talk to each other, somehow I knew it was goodbye. He was tired, and sad, and alone. He had visitors, but no one who stayed by his side day in and day out — he had pushed many away in his cruel words and actions. I felt an overwhelming sense of duty to be there — but of course, I couldn’t be, as I had just given birth just days prior to my son and I was in recovery myself, lost in a sea of exhaustion and soreness.
And now, instead of being able to simply honor his memory, I must do the work to escape the years of criticism, relieving myself of the requirements to meet the impossible expectations, and allowing myself to be an average flawed human who will at best live and die and never hurt another soul. And I mourn the loss of the years we could have had — the moments of him meeting his grandson and potential future grandchildren. I mourn the loss of the happy moments never to come. But I don’t mourn the loss of what would come with it — with each parenting error would come the judgement, the belittling, the how could you? There will never be that — now I’m left to judge myself harshly as I hear his voice in my head daily and question if I’ll ever be able to silence it and find my own healthy and and compassionate voice, while honoring the parts of his which were right all along.
life with interest 