I’M GLAD MY DAD DIED

When my dog died two years ago, I curled up into a ball and cried for two weeks. His name was Buddy and I still glance at his picture regularly. It’s a screensaver on my iPad. He was devoted and loving and was in my life for twelve wonderful years.

My father died a few months ago. His obituary was very simple. He died at the age of 70.  There were no family members, or any information listed. That was pretty much it. There was nothing nice to say. He was a horrible person who lived at least 60 years too long (he was a horrible child from what I hear), and I suppose no one wanted their name listed next to his. I know I didn’t. When it was mentioned to me that he died, I couldn’t help but smile. It felt as though fifty something  years of trauma had peeled off my back and I can honestly say I feel lighter when I walk now.

My mother doesn’t remember it, but when I was four years old, he was sitting on the back cement patio in a folding chair with a pellet gun across his lap. I remember the day clearly, as though it happened yesterday. The neighbor was sitting next to him in another folding chair. They were drinking and laughing. My father was 21 years old at the time.

He pointed at something white in the backyard, and said, “Hey, isn’t that your ball you lost?”

Honestly, I couldn’t remember losing a ball, but I was four. I ran to retrieve it and when I reached it, it wasn’t a ball at all, but a wadded-up piece of paper. Seconds later, I was jolted by stinging pains on my back. He was shooting me.

I ran into the house screaming in pain as he howled with laughter from his chair. My mother grabbed me and stood me on top of the bathroom cabinet. She peeled my shirt off, and I remember turning to look in the mirror as red whelps were forming on my back. My mother yelled at him, so for the next decade, he did as much as he could when she wasn’t around.

He threatened to kill me with a shotgun at the age of seven if I ever told her the things he did to me. I won’t get into the details of the sexual abuse, but he knew how not to leave marks or a trail. I also won’t go into details about the abuse doled out on other family members. We all went through some sort of trauma with him, but I will say, it was consistent.

When I was eleven he slept with the fourteen-year-old girl who lived in the house behind us, time and time again, while my mother was at work. I was told to guard the back door while they were locked away in my parents’ bedroom. He also slept with countless  women. I know this because I overheard telephone conversations. I even answered a few. He would meet multiple women all day long while my mother was at work on the weekends.

When I was in the ninth grade (about 14 yrs. old), I finally had enough and ran away from home. He was cunning and sly and the town’s UPS man. Everyone knew him. He smiled and was very friendly to the ladies. This is how he met so many women. He had a route of them. He was popular in a world of women who barely knew him. At night, most nights, he was in and out of my room, groping me, swinging his pride and joy in my face.

I was tired and exhausted. I still am.

I ran to a school in a neighboring town where one of my teacher’s wives worked. I had never met her, but he talked about her all the time in class, and she sounded nice. I thought, this is who I will trust.  

I went into the foster care system. It was a little better because I could feel safe at night, but I became the personal servant/slave of several foster homes. Some were just after the check, while others were after the check and free labor. The last foster home I was in was a hundred-year-old wooden house with no heat or air conditioning in the main portion of the house, no window units. The master bedroom and bath did, but those rooms were off limits to the children. The hot water tank for the children’s bathroom was turned to freezing. Ice baths, even in the winter.

When I was almost seventeen years old, my foster mom told me I’d have to move out after graduation because the checks from foster care would stop. UPS men make nice salaries, even back then, so I decided I had no choice but to move back home. I told my social worker to make the arrangements.

The thing that bothered me was: Why wasn’t my brother and sister in foster care? Why just me?

My father had told everyone that I ran away because of bad grades, and I was a liar and crazy.

I had walked to church every Sunday by myself. I prayed all day long for God to take me out of the situation. Because of the threats on my life, I knew I had to be careful. He once told me he had a place for bodies and it threw me for a loop, but I thought, are there bodies out there? Of course, part of his act was to cause confusion. I don’t think he killed anyone, but my cousin once told me he saw my dad try to rape a woman.

He was believed 100 percent.

I wish I had understood back then that he had destroyed my credibility or tried to. He spent the next few decades continuing that movement. He lied to me about my mother, about my siblings and lied to them about me. Most of us don’t talk anymore.

The central component was my father.  

I haven’t talked to my mother or siblings in about two decades. Probably the greatest casualty of our time with him was the bonds he destroyed in our family unit.

Over the years, I got a few dogs. They loved me. Ruckus is the last dog I have living and he’s hanging on, but like all dogs, like Buddy, he’s devoted and loving. I’ll cry when he dies. It will take me years to get over him.

My dad is already a forgotten memory and I’m glad he died.