Happy father’s day… or, what’s left of it.   About five and a half hours.

I think mom wanted me to wish Bill happy father’s day, but I couldn’t do it.    Bill isn’t my dad.   Even though he’s married to my mom, he’ll never be a father figure to me.

I hate to disappoint mom, but that’s just how it is for me.  I’m probably the only one of the three who feels that way.    Sucks, kinda.  I hope it doesn’t come back to bite me on the bum later when they pass away.

My dad died in December of 2001.   Yep.   The same year the Twin Towers went down.   It makes it easy to remember.

My dad smelled of tainted foundry dirt and grease.   He sported a year-round tan from working next to iron furnaces.  I don’t remember him ever looking pasty – not even when he was on oxygen.

He had a thick head of curly brown and silver hair, large hands with dried skin cracks, and deep, deep, wide blue eyes.

His favorite line was, “you just don’t listen.   You never listen.”

I think he said that to me at least fifty times a day when he wasn’t sleeping or at a factory.  Which was, fortunately or unfortunately, 90% of my childhood.

It wasn’t an easy life with him.
I was smart enough to know that my home wasn’t a typical family environment.
I had years of verbal abuse, but I never wanted food or had to sleep outside.  His attitude towards the whole situation is what binds me and my siblings today.

I know that for truth.

Although he worked for 100 hours a week for nearly ten years, he did come to my middle school band concerts.    I could tell where he was in the audience by the sound of his snoring.    He was a tired man.  But, at least he showed.

Before I got the rod in my back, he drove me to Indianapolis every Friday and donated blood with me.    I was giving for my operation.  He just liked the stick of the needle, I think.    He’d also flirt with the nurses a bit, but that was okay.

I felt a bit less afraid with him right there with me.

He had a lot of faults, but he was there when it was important.

Sure, of course, I miss him and would like to see him again.   Definitely not like monkey’s paw/Pet Semetary type of thing.  That’d just be disrespectful.

But, I wouldn’t want him to get to know me as I am now.    I think I’d be afraid that I’d disappoint given where I am in life right now.   I hated disappointing him.

I don’t think I’m the daughter he envisioned me to be, providing that there was any vision at all.    My little sister probably fits the bill more than I.

But, that’s neither here nor there.
Can’t fix it now.   Any of it, but I’m sure he would have made a great grandfather.

Anyway,  miss you dad.