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echoes-of-realities · 4 years ago

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I’m a writer, and despite not knowing how I feel or what to write, I wanted someplace to record all the things I do remember about him. I spent so long trying to erase every memory of him, and now that he’s really, truly gone, I want all those memories I hated back.

He always smelled of cigarette smoke, sweat, sawdust, and something sweet I can never ever name until I get a whiff of a can of Pepsi being cracked open.

He was quiet, and reserved, and he didn’t like to drink. I get that from him. I got my sweet tooth and terrible eyesight from him too, and I take my coffee the same way he used to. I remember because my sister once tried his coffee before he put the cream and sugar in it and she somehow loved it black; my dad and me couldn’t understand how this three year old liked black coffee. I’m scared I got his addicting personality too, which is why I rarely touch alcohol and will never gamble in my life.

He loved yard sales and pawn shops. It didn’t matter where we were going or how late for a job he would be, he would always pull over and look through them. Was it irresponsible? Yeah, of course, but he would let us wander the plastic tables of people selling their long forgotten memories and dusty old regrets and he never rushed us even as the clock ticked further and further away from being on time.

He bought a GameCube and the Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker for $70 from a yard sale once. We used to crowd around the tv and play together, just the three of us. My sister was too young to handle the controller, but we used to let her sail around the ocean while we looked up walkthroughs. I spent almost 2 frustrating hours trying to do the part on the pirate ship at the very beginning, but when he came home he did it for me and it took him like 10 seconds. I thought it was a miracle despite not knowing what a miracle was.

He once adopted a cockatiel from the lady who hired him to redo her kitchen flooring instead of taking payment for a job. My mom hated that he did that, and hated that bird even more. I was five, but he let me name him Cuddles even though he knew you can’t really cuddle a bird.

He used to set up a cheap tv and our gamecube in his van so my sister and I could play it while he was on jobs. We usually ended up following him around and watching him work though because playing video games by ourselves wasn’t half as fun as seeing strange houses and unrolling carpet. I haven’t even been in a flooring store since, but I could probably install a decent looking carpet even still.

He used to let my sister and I pick the pickles off his McDonald’s burgers even though they were his favourite part, because they were our favourite part too, so he gave them all to us every time.

He bought me a painted wooden elephant from the farmers market just because he saw me looking at it. I can still remember that day; the bright sun, my sister sleeping on my mom’s shoulder, the cement parking bar I was walking on like a tightrope, my dad’s hand in mine and the wooden elephant in the other.

He would call me squirt and monkey instead of sweetie or honey and I always loved that because no other dad I knew called their kids that, and when my sister came along he called her little squirt. I always forget about that until I find myself calling my little cousins squirt or monkey just like he did to me, once upon a forever ago.

He used to fall asleep curled up in front of the fireplace like a cat. Apparently it helped his sore back but I think he just liked the feel of the fire on his face, even if it was electric heat. He once melted a pillow and almost burned down our house and the neighbour’s because we lived in a tiny duplex, but the next day he was fast asleep in front of the fireplace just like always.

He’s the real reason I wanted to learn how to play guitar, and I’ve never once admitted that to anyone. He had an electric guitar and an amp and a microphone set up out in our garage, and I would spend hours trying to get my little fingers to play a chord while he worked on his wood project of the week. He was never any good at it because he never had someone teach him and he was too busy to get better on his own, but I still remember sitting in rapt attention in the garage with cigarette smoke thick in the air between us as he slowly plucked one of the few songs he knew.

The feel of the strings under my fingers and the hum of the body against mine makes me feel closer to him, even in spite of the miles and years and corporeality now between us.

The only thing I have left of him is an old guitar strap, a wooden elephant, and these ashes that were once him.

My dad was a petty thief, he evaded taxes for probably 20 years, he owes over $50,000 in child support, he stole dental equipment and jewelry from jobs, he had a gambling addiction that ruined my family and nearly put us on the street, he went bankrupt and didn’t tell my mom until Canada Revenue was knocking on her door looking for someone to pay off his debts, he abandoned us and hurt me more than anyone else in my life ever has and probably more than anyone else ever will.

He was also just, you know, my dad for 9 years, unquestionably, unconditionally. He taught me to ride a bike, to play video games, to tie my shoes, to sword fight with sticks, to roll carpet properly, to balance on cement parking bars, to bury my sister in sand, to sometimes eat dessert before supper after a really bad day. He gave me my love of music, of video games, of McDonald’s pickles, of fantasy novels, of wolves, of sweet things, of coffee with three teaspoons of sugar. He was my only connection to being Cree and I was too young when he left to ask him all the questions I have about our shared culture.

He was Native and born to two fifteen year olds, the oldest of five kids from four different dads. He never finished grade 8 and started working at age thirteen to help his mom support his siblings. His own father held him in the hospital once the day he was born before being chased off the reserve. His sister never knew her dad either, his brother’s dad was abusive and died of cancer, his youngest brother and sister were 16 years younger than him. He had two kids who were so white passing most people thought we weren’t even his. Between the inter generational trauma and the fact that he never had a stable father figure in his life, it’s a wonder he stayed around as long as he did.

But while knowing this now explains his actions, it doesn’t excuse them. It doesn’t make my own pain magically go away, it doesn’t erase the decade and a half I spent angry and confused and grieving someone who’s love was supposed to be unconditional. I don’t forgive him for all the pain he caused me, but I miss him. I’ve always missed him, despite all the years I spent hiding that with anger.

I’ve always know that grief can be very lonely, I never knew exactly how lonely it truly was until I lost someone that only one other person in my life is grieving. My sister and I are alone, despite the love and support from our friends and family, we’re alone in this. Nobody in our lives aside from us, his only two daughters, miss him.

There’s a different type of grief when you lose an estranged parent, especially one that abandoned you when you were just a kid who had only just learned her times tables and how to write in cursive. It wasn’t my choice to have no contact with him for over half my life, but I still regret those lost years all the same. I’ve been grieving him for fourteen years already, but it’s different now because he’s really gone, not just “out there somewhere.” I used to check obituaries for the town I was born in because I didn’t know whether he was dead or alive, whether he was homeless or had another family, whether he was even in that town or not. He’s really gone now, and so is any chance at ever rekindling with him, at having a relationship with him.

I’ve lost my dad three times in my life:

The first was that February night when he dropped Valentine’s Day gifts off for my sister and I and then disappeared into the dark night, swirling out of focus like the snow falling just out of sight of the porch light.

The second time was that August evening when he sent me a Facebook friend request and I deleted it because I was still so caught up in my anger at him abandoning us that I was in no place to make amends, I know now that it was because he was sick and dying even though it would take another five years before he was truly gone.

The third, and last time, I lost my dad was July 25th, on that windy afternoon when his sister who we’d never met Facebook messaged us to tell us that she found him dead that morning.

I will never lose him again because he’s gone for good now. I’ve know this fact for fourteen years, but somehow it’s so much more painful now than it was on July 24th, when he was out of my life but still out there somewhere, still alive.

#personal #don’t reblog #I might delete this later but his memorial is this afternoon and I can’t sleep so instead I just wrote for a while #and I just needed to feel like I am sharing these thoughts to someone even if no one ever reads this #this is also why I’ve been effectively mia for the past month cause I’ve been working on processing my dad’s death

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meridian-park · 3 years ago

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