Gosh, being human is a complicated thing.
M’s Dad hasn’t been able to parent for a long time. He is stuck– as he sometimes is– in cycles of addiction. Thus, his life is hard and messy and I assume he’s been only surviving for a long time. He has let lots of the sweet moments in life pass him by as the hours becomes days, days become weeks, weeks grow to months, and months has become years. He missed some really amazing things that would have been inconvenient and time consuming to talk about, but I would have wanted to talk about. I have a running list:
- M fell in love with field hockey.
- M wants to out of our school district and wants to apply to vocational school.
- M had her first fight with her best friend.
- M feels like her identity needs a nose ring.
- K & I are going to figure out braces for her. We’re too tired to argue anymore.
- She got into the HS she wanted!
- New school is hard. The drama program is underwhelming. She misses her old school.
- She got into her shop. Only 12 students got a slot.
- Math is her best subject this year. Check the window for flying pigs.
- She has a very sweet, nice girl she asked to be her girlfriend and they are now dating.
- K took her out driving already. Fifteen years, nine months will be here too soon.
- First romance was short lived. She’s back to single life.
Now, this list is romanticized a little, because the real talks would be contempt-filled because her Dad doesn’t know what else to do with all the feelings that will pile on sharing her life: shame, grief, pride, love, hope. So instantaneously his stance is usually to oppose mine. Here, I can pretend we can just share and commiserate without the emotional piece gumming up to gears and turning a conversation into a painful exchange.
Anyway, there is an ache of this absence in her life. Entire chapters her Dad missed… while I have the grace to accept and cherish the peace and tranquility that brings… I also mourn that it is this way. I mourn that I have to live without being able to do the right thing and tell him as her Dad these things. I mourn that he’ll live his life with the gut-punch thought of: I’ll never see her smile with braces.
I grieve that M doesn’t know what do do about the few peppered texts she’s been getting or really what it will mean… and neither do I.
So she jokes: “Bruh.” But like many things in life, the levity is tempered by all the words I know are unsaid. Words that if she said, he’d be unable to emotionally untangle and listen to and show up for.
I’m not sure what words her deflection is a place holder for. I imagine they are things like this: “You left me.” ” You said things that wounded me.” “You don’t know how to be different.” “Dad, we love each other, but you are not a safe person. I don’t know if you’ll ever be. That makes us both sad and we can wish it was different, but just taking you on your good days is not enough for me. That should not be all I get form my Dad. I should not have to endure your bad days.” Yet, saying them is just yelling into the abyss and having them whip back in the wind unto your face. He’s not able to hold them. As such, she doesn’t want to waste her breath climbing that ridge not be heard– a lesson she learned much quicker than I. I wasted lots of breath and words and energy before I learned to just live with it.
In this chapter, one word holds whole phrases that may never been shared.
… and that just has to do for now.
Love, Mom 