Earlier today I got a phone call from my mom. She called me to tell me that my father died today. Kind of odd emotions running through me right now. You always know that your parents are going to die sooner or later. With my dad, I thought it would be sooner rather than later. But still, when it happens, it still catches you by surprise.
I never was really close to my dad. I remember many head bumpings when I was growing up. Some my fault, and some his. Some probably neither one's fault, just the way it was. I never thought of my dad as a "friend" or someone I could go to for help. He just seemed to be the guy who paid the bills for the household and that was pretty much it. The times he would take us on vacation, if you didn't like where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do, that was pretty much too bad. There is only once in my life I can remember when he decided to do something I wanted to do. I just mentioned briefly that I was going to take my youngest brother snake hunting down in St. Mary's County, Maryland (I live in Maryland at the time), and he asked if it would be OK if he came along. I was completely shocked! But of course I said it would be OK. I don't remember too much about that day, but I do recall thinking afterwards that maybe that is the way other kids have it when they have a dad that really does things with them.
My dad did well in life, financially, at least up till several years ago. He owned his own business for as long as I could remember, and none of us kids really wanted for any necessity in life. We seemed to move to a larger and better house every several years. Finally after I moved out on my own, my parents bought a house right on the Gulf of Mexico in Englewood, and I do recall thinking that was a pretty low blow to do that AFTER I had moved out of the house....
Left me stuck in Maryland while they moved to sunny Florida..... But heck, maybe my life would have turned out much worse if that had happened, so who knows? My brother just a year younger than I moved down there, and his life just didn't turn out so well. And my youngest brother lives down there now, and I'm not sure he is doing all that well either. So maybe the environment there would not have been a good place for me to be living.
Ah, well, eventually my mom and dad divorced. I talked with my mom a whole lot more than my dad. I guess I kind of got the picture when the cards we would send to him on his birthday and Christmas came back with NO FORWARDING ADDRESS on them. Not that he ever responded to the ones we think he got, but still..........
When my parents moved down to Florida, my dad bought a business (Exxon service station), and from what I had seen it was doing very well. Somewhere along the line, my dad took a turn for the worse in his business decisions, I think. I can remember Connie and I visiting the Englewood area and running into him somewhere (I can't remember if that was before or after the NO FORWARDING ADDRESS thing), and he seemed to be doing well. Matter of fact, he looked TOO well. Gold chains on his neck, and some big dude at his right elbow who looked like some kind of Mafia hit man. I heard (rumors only, no substantiation) that he had gotten into drugs and that guy was his body guard. I remember my dad asking that we stop by to see him the next day, and when I was non-committal, the big guy turns to my dad and asks him if he wants him to MAKE SURE I show up.
My dad told him "no", but I really wonder what would have happened if he had said "yes".
After that I believe I only saw him one other time. He was living with some woman in her apartment, and I don't even know what he was doing for a living. I thought he lost his business, but honestly, I felt it not my place to get him to go into any details. He did seem extremely bitter about life in general, and was constantly brow beating the woman he was living with. I knew that wasn't going to last......
So I just lost touch with him. Last year or so when Connie and I were visiting my mom, my youngest brother Ross was there as well. He told us that dad was basically living in some shack and was a booze hound hanging out at the local bar. People there made fun of him and gave him drinks just so they could watch him fall down on the way out of the bar. Ross said he was living in filth and nothing he said nor did seemed to make a difference.
Pretty much, the end was in sight, I think. My mom called last week and told me that dad had fallen and crushed a disk in his back. He was in the hospital but they had released him pretty quickly. I think she saw the writing on the wall as well, as she wanted to ask Connie what she should be about getting a power of attorney from my dad. Mom didn't say it, but certainly she knew.....
So that all came to a head with the phone call today. My dad had died. Ross found him dead in his trash heap of a home. He had abandoned his family, his friends, and his life. He made some wrong decisions along the road and it all came to the point of him dying alone in some rat hole.
My dad abandoned me long ago, but I still feel sad about it. More so than I really thought I would when I finally heard this news. I guess blood does run thicker than water, which in a way surprises me. I really thought I didn't give a damn about my dad any longer.
My mom says there will be no services for him. He will just be cremated and all traces of him gone. I don't know..... SHOULD I go down there? For what, to give my "respects"? To some stranger who used to be my dad? To some guy who showed me he really didn't give a damn about me nor anyone else?
You know, I have had the blahs all darn week long. Just felt like I'm dragging around the weight of the world on me with no real good reason. It's like subconsciously I knew that phone call was coming and I was already in preparation for today.
Damn...... WHY didn't he ask for help?