Daddy Issues

There are a few moments in my life in which I truly remember pain. Emotional searing pain. The kind that changes you, that clicks something in your brain, turning it on, or maybe off. When something has happened that is just so very wrong.

One of those moments, the first one that I can remember was when we buried my step dad. I have no idea why we stood there and watched them put him in the ground, but it was the worst moment of my life. It's hard to explain, but I remember that my heart was pounding, and burning at the same time. I had my family members around me. And I just wanted to run. I am not sure exactly what this rush of adrenaline was doing for me, maybe it was keeping me from collapsing. I didn't want them to put him in the ground, it was too permanent. It seemed crude and almost barbaric. I'm not sure.

My step dad is the dad I remember from my childhood, he is the one who taught me how to make spaghetti and grilled cheese sandwiches (mayo, not butter). He was a bastard though, a real SOB who wasn't the greatest guy to me and my siblings. He smoked pot with the teenage daughter who lived next door. Don't even get my older brother talking about him, he'll get pissed all over again. He mellowed around the time I hit 18, probably realizing that my mother couldn't stand him and us kids were the only ones who MIGHT give a damn if he didn't start acting like less of a prick. Most of the men I have dated in my life resemble his characteristics in some way. Go figure.

My real father died when I was a lot younger. I have very little memories of him. Even now I'm trying to count them in my head, but I keep forgetting if I already counted that one. Maybe 5 memories of my own, and they are merely flashes of images in my head, and the sound of my own voice telling the story. I remember for Christmas one year, it must have been the year before he died, he picked out a bag for me, kind of like a book bag, but it was not a backpack, a briefcase of sorts, for an 8 year old. It was dark blue, with light blue plastic trim. I remember he put something in every pocket, a comb, a brush, a mirror. My sister helped him pick it out for me. She told me. I remember once when my brothers and I were staying with him, he came out of the bathroom and he was having a heart attack. I don't know if I went and got my eldest brother, or if my older brother did. My whole memory is of him coming out of the bathroom, stumbling, wincing in pain. The memories are like that. Flashes of imagines that last a second and then fade out.

One memory I have though- he was in the hospital, about to have surgery. He walked us down to the lobby, gown and IV and all- and said goodbye to us as we left. We, I'm assuming is my sibs and my mom- but I don't know. He said I love you. And that was it. He died in the hospital. For almost 26 years, I never really knew what happened. How it happened. Did he die on the table, during surgery? Did he make it out of surgery- I didn't know. Even then, I wanted details, and the question bothered my sibs. He had a heart attack Julie, you KNOW this. Ok- well that was obviously not enough info for me, because I was asking! But I stopped asking- until about three months ago, I asked my mother.

My father had undergone his second Quadruple Bypass Surgery. (Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting, or CABG or "Cabbage") He had many many heart attacks- and never stopped smoking. Even after his first CABG, he never stopped smoking. He had a CB radio in his car, so when he would have the smaller attacks while driving, he could radio in emergency and they could pick him up. My mother said that he had been in almost every hospital in Orange County and he never stopped smoking. (Side note, I have NO memory of him smoking.) So he had this second CABG and he was in surgery for a long time. My mom said it was too long, his heart was too weak. After surgery, in Recovery, he had another massive heart attack and died. Maybe he was DNR at this point, I don't know.

There are other stories about that day and I think my sibs see it from a different standpoint. They have their version. I only have someone else's version. I don't remember. I didn't get the call. I was barely nine years old. Nobody expected me to understand anything- but you know, I did. Some time later, maybe weeks, maybe months, maybe it was just days- I came home from school and my dad's old car was parked in our driveway. I have no idea what it was doing there, probably finally moved from the place he lived or something. I remember crawling in the back seat and crying for a long time. I never said anything to my mom or my sibs about it. My pain is my own. I've never been to the cemetery with my sibs. Except when my step dad died later and we buried him one plot over. I never wanted to go with them to his graveside. I deserve to have some moments of my own. My sibs have all sorts of memories with him. All of mine seemed to get washed away. Maybe it was the trauma that made me forget, maybe it's just the passage of time. Maybe that's just what happens when you don't talk about it for a long time. I don't know. All I've got are the spaces that I try to fill, that I've always been trying to fill. My fear of abandonment runs very deep and it took me a long time to figure it out- and now there is no questions why I have it. I don't miss him, that's the thing. I barely knew him. It's been 26 years and I don't remember much about him, hardly even what he looked like. I don't remember the sound of his voice. The way it felt when he hugged me. The sadness I know I felt when he died.

But the absence of those memories are the most painful of all.