Have you ever wondered if you can miss something that you have never had? All of my life I have never had a close relationship with my father. From the moment I was conceived, my father despised and rejected me. Growing up I never understood the hatred that he seemed to have for me and the abuse that he inflicted.
My father met my mother when she was in her late teens. They married shortly after he returned from the army and fought in the war in Vietnam. My father served 4 years and returned home an alcoholic, full of rage, very cruel and very abusive. As a sober man, my father was handsome, funny, charming and quite likable. When he drank, no one was safe from the fits of rage that consumed him and everyone in his path. My mother lived in extreme fear of her life and ours for 17 long years until she was able to finally escape the horrible violence. I can still see that 13-year-old girl standing on her grandmother’s porch, torn with emotion as my father told me he would be leaving. My father left a lot and would be gone for days on end, so that part was nothing unusual. This time however, my father told me that my mother had filed for divorce and he would be leaving for good. I would be lying if I did not admit that part of me was elated that he would not be a in our lives anymore. None of us would have to spend our days and nights living in fear of whether we would live or die. Another part of me was sad because this man whom I had so desperately tried to earn his love and approval was leaving. My young, divided heart couldn’t help but wonder if I would miss him?
Before he left he handed me a $20 bill that he said he owed me for shooting me in my rear with a bb gun. One day when I was around 7 or 8 years old, He had told that he would give me $20 if I bent over and let him shoot me and not cry. He promised he would only pump the gun up once, and little did my innocent heart know he had pumped it 20 times already. I took the bet and as soon as the bb hit me, I screamed in pain and lost the bet. I had a bruise for weeks. Years later, standing on my grandmother’s porch, he finally admitted that he had lied about how many times he had pumped the gun up. As he handed me the money he asked, “B.D. (my nickname my dad gave me when I was little, He said I looked like a Bald-headed Duck. I really don’t think he meant it as a compliment) anyway, “B.D., I never was mean to you, was I.” I reluctantly accepted his peace offering and replied, “no daddy, you were never mean to me.” We both knew that was a bold face lie. The hard truth was yes, YES! My father was meaner than a den full of vipers with Satan as their master, however I had learned over the years that the safest response was just to affirm the words he wanted and needed to hear.
For the next 10 years I remember seeing my father once. I went with my oldest sister to one of the gaps in Southwest Virginia to visit him for a while. I don’t really remember much about the visit except when we were leaving I told him I missed him when honestly, I didn’t. The only connection I had with this man was the trauma he had beat into me for the first 13 years of my life. I lived many years of my adult life controlled by the lies he has instilled in my fragile heart. I believed I was ugly, stupid, useless, a crybaby, not wanted, unworthy to be called by his name and absolutely unlovable. It was a tough road to hoe for a young girl and I didn’t fare to well with it for a long time.
Life without my father went on. I graduated high school and my father wasn’t there. I didn’t miss him. I had my first date and my father wasn’t there. I didn’t miss him. I got a job and bought my first car. My father wasn’t there. I didn’t miss him. I got married and my father wasn’t there. I didn’t miss him. Birthdays, holidays, father’s days came and went and I never gave it a second though that my father wasn’t there. It wasn’t until I had my first child that an uncanny desire rose up in me for my children to know their only living grandfather. I reached out to my father and made plans to go visit him. Back in those days there was no internet or cell phones, so we communicated through hand written letters or land line telephones, making plans for me, my children, my sisters and children to visit him. We always had to pick a specific date to ensure that my father was sober for our arrival. Visits went decent for the most part, but on some occasions, not so much. One time right after my first son was born, we went for visit. My sisters and I could tell something wasn’t right. My father seemed agitated and was using curse words that he normally didn’t say when we were visiting. He commented that he didn’t know we were coming and his girlfriend piped up proclaiming that yes, he did! That did not suit well with him and I saw the father that I had lived with for years rise up in him. I knew it was time to leave, yet he wasn’t willing to let us go easily. I had to take all of the kids to McDonalds, leaving my sisters behind, and wait for him to pass out to go get them and all of us head home. Needless to say, it was a while before I ventured back to see him.
There were a few more occasions over the years that we all got together, mostly Christmases and Thanksgivings. I would try to remember to call and wish my father a happy birthday, although he never called to wish me one. I would remind myself to call him around Father’s Day and talk to him, although he never thought to call me on Mother’s Day. Usually whenever my father called me, he thought he was calling someone else. I would answer and when he realized he had called me, he would make small talk and promise to come to see us soon. “Soon” didn’t happen and honestly, I really didn’t miss him. The worst phone call I received from my father was one evening when he had been drinking. We talked for a few minutes and before he hung up he said those old familiar words, “B.D. I never was mean to you, was I?” At this point in my life I was no longer a terrified little girl that felt the need to give him the answer he wanted. Instead, my answer was “yes, YES you were mean to me. You were mean to all of us! You made our life a living hell. But I have forgiven you for all of that.” He did not like my answer one bit and all I heard on the other line was the phone being slammed on the hook. I don’t remember too many phone calls after that.
The best phone call I ever got from my father was on June 28th, 2011. It was days after my children had lost their father to colon cancer, we were on vacation, my phone rang and it was my father. He wanted to let me know he was going to have surgery the next day for cancer they had found in his colon. Mostly he wanted me to know that he had talked to the hospital chaplain and had made his peace with God. He had surety that no matter the outcome of the surgery, he would be fine. Despite the estranged relationship that I had with my father, it made my heart happy to know that years of prayers for his soul had been answered.
I would like to tell you a wonderful story of how life changed after that, of how my father and I finally connected and how he became a wonderful part of our lives, but none the less, that story doesn’t exist. Life continued to go on and my father wasn’t there. I finally went to college at the age of 44. Graduated at the age of 48 with two degrees. My children had significant birthdays, graduated high school, my daughter had her first child, I got my first career job; so many momentous occassions that we celebrated, but my father wasn’t there, and again, I didn’t miss him. Every few years he would show up at my house, usually in January, tell me how much he had missed me, and hand me $200 “to get the grandkids something.” My mind would always retreat back to the 13-year-old girl standing on my grandmother’s porch, accepting the peace offering that would somehow absolve him of his sins until the next occasion rolled around. Some things seemed to never change.
In January 2019 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I would spend the next 17 months of my life in active treatment, fighting to overcome the nasty devil of cancer. My father never called or came by, in fact he didn’t even know what I was going through, yet I didn’t miss him. Somehow, he finally found out about my battle and stopped by to see me one afternoon. We talked a little about what I had went through, and he told me he was glad I was okay. I looked into his eyes, searching for some kind of connection between the two of us, but I found nothing. At the age of 50 I finally realized that my father and I were strangers. He hugged me and left. That was the last time that I saw my father and he would know who I was.
My father was diagnosed with vascular dementia and over the past few years his memory has left him. It is a cruel disease that slowly takes from you what it wants and only allows you to remember what it says that you can. It frustrates you when you are trying to recall a simple word that you have used a thousand times but for the life of you, will not come to your mind. It robs you of your reality and traps you in the prison that it chooses for you. He and his girlfriend of 30ish years both struggled with other health issues, but she still had her wits about her, and along with lots of help from my middle sister, was able to take care of my father for the most part. On Christmas day 2023, his girlfriend suddenly passed away. Not only was my father not able to stay by himself because of the dementia, he was also in the process of moving from a mobile home back to an apartment that was near friends who could help take care of him. Unbeknownst to my father, he was in crisis and needed help.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have spent more time with my father than I have for most of my adult life. I’ve helped my sister pack and clean at his old place, unpack and organize at this new place and I have gone over and sat with him for a few hours at a time so my sister could take care of other things. My father has asked me numerous times my name, where I am from, and where have I lived. We have talked about places that he lived as a child, his parents, brothers and sisters, who sadly he doesn’t realize has passed on, his time in the military, his cats, country music he likes to listen to, his love for Elvis Presley, how he has hitch hiked across the country and when his girlfriend is coming back from California. We have laughed and we have sat in silence, yet not one time have we talked about the fact that he is my father and I am his daughter. We are just those two strangers who just a few short years ago was standing in my kitchen hugging each other, now sharing time together that won’t be recalled.
The word miss can be used as a noun or a verb. As a noun it can mean failure, loss, absence, or defect. Miss as a verb can mean want, feel a loss, crave, desire, long, need, pine for, wish, or yearn. It can also be used in verb form meaning to fail, overlook, disregard, or forget. Today, as I sat in the recliner and watched my father doze on the couch. I realized that all my life I have “missed” my father in some form or fashion. I’m sure there was a time as a young girl that I craved, desired, longed for and yearned for this man to love me, to show his approval, to care for me, to want me. Once he was no longer a part of my young life, the longing turned into forgetting and disregard.
I am not bitter at my father, nor do I have any anger in my heart for the abuse he inflicted upon me. I am no longer a wounded little girl or even a confused young woman who is trapped in the prison of trauma. I have not forgotten what myself, my mother and my siblings had to endure, but I know that freedom and healing has come with age, wisdom and understanding. I now know that my father’s father was an alcoholic, full of rage, who was very cruel and abusive. He made my father’s childhood a living nightmare and beat him into a cruel prison and threw away the key. I have realized that at one point in time, my father loved with the only capacity that he knew how, yet trauma and addiction dominated his life at a much greater capacity. Today this tyrant called dementia rules over his mind and has locked him into another prison that he cannot escape. The hard truth is that he nor I will never know what it is like to connect with one another the way a father and daughter was meant to connect. So, can you miss something that you have never had? I conclude yes, indeed you can, just as I have missed my father.
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