My father was a difficult man a man of contradictions and ultimately a very flawed man. My sister would say even worse, and she has.  She hates him.  I pity him.

In an earlier post I sort of described what I knew about his family life prior to marriage to my mom.  He had a hard life, there was no denying that, but that really does not excuse his actions and behavior.   When I look back at the memories a few things come to mind - in no random order: 

I remember his affection to babies when we went to Church.  Babies loved him, he played with them...toss them in the air....dote on them...gave lots of affection.  It was really nice to see..but once you learned to walk...he no longer was able to relate to you.

My Father was a racist.  A complete and utter racist.  Yet, he married my mom, a Jew who converted, but nevertheless he formed a friendship with my grandfather and my uncle.  I had best friends who were Hispanic, my father had no issue calling them a wetback.  It was disgusting and insulting.  My father called black people niggers.  Yet the only time I ever saw him cry was when we had to take Natalie to the airport to send her back to her parents (her mom was Hispanic). 

I remember him taking me to the movies, taking me camping, to little league baseball, I remember play boxing with him as a kid....but I also remember him using exercise as a means to punish us.  I remember the yelling with us and his arguing with mom.  I remember his constant put downs, insults and disrespect.  Hell I even remember just about every insult he told me.  I remember him telling me I wouldnt amount to anything because he always said I was overweight as a kid.  Yet, here I am, a corporate officer, a college instructor who owns his own home.   And I am the first person of my family to attend and graduate college.

I remember when I turned 15 he would say..."Son, I am going to take you to Tijuana to get laid."  And I was totally against it...and kept telling him no.  I wouldn't go.  LOL  Not exactly the type of fatherly thing a father should do! LOL  On the flip side, I saw him essentially totally ignore my sister.  She who wanted to be daddy's little girl.

Early in my life, my father was a good provider for the family.  We went to church, he was in the Church leadership.  Yet, it was all a charade.  By the time I became an young adult I learned alot, I would like to say I learned everything, but I am sure there are things about him that I will never know.  My father was a thief, a liar, a drug dealer.  He used his "connections" to actually BUILD our church!  He cheated on my mom.  He physically abused her.  He emotionally abused my sister and I (and beat my sister too). 

The last time I saw him alive...he was in court.   My sister and I found out of his court appointment I drove to Pasadena and in front of him, his attorney and the judge I asked the Judge to please remove our address from his file because he no longer lives with us and basically I wrote him off.  I remember answering a few questions from the Judge - my father stood there stone-faced and the Judge ended up granting our request.  (We still received letters occasionally, but that was it.).

I did not know he died until about a year ago, my sister searched is Social Security Number on the Net.  Honestly, I felt nothing.  By the time he died, I had not seen him for about 10-12 years.  I think a few days later I felt sort of bad that he died.  But, mainly because of the memories that it stirred up, at most because of that.  Because by the time he died he was no longer my father.  He was a stranger who was not the same person  who I went to Church with and spent time with.  No, he was strung out on Drugs, was a convicted felon who was a completely other person.  What I did find ironic about the entire discovery was that I believe we were in the same hospital at the same time.  I was recovering from surgery and he was in the same hospital dying.  Life is ironic like that. 

Posted by: Robert Woolwine at 10:59 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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