Everything Changed. Nothing Changed At All.

On April 23, 2016 I got a call that would both change my world and not change my world at all.
That is the day my father passed away. This past year has been a weird roller coaster of emotions I wasn't expecting to ride and "new" family that I wasn't expecting to encounter. The story seems like it would begin two days prior when I would get the call that my father was dying. But really, the story begins over 40 years earlier - just months after I was born.

My father was married 5 times. I come from wife #2. Through the first 4 marriages there were 7 of us kids - 5 he was the birth father of, 1 he became the adopted father of, and 1 he was a step-father of. I never knew any of my half-siblings while I was growing up. My youngest sibling, from wife #4, is the only one I would come to know and have a relationship with. I was nearly 12 when she was born. I wouldn't really start to get to know her until I was an adult. And we wouldn't have a real relationship until we were both adults. But thanks to her Mom, who kept in touch with me after the divorce, I would get to see them from time to time. Now we get together regularly. While, like the others, she is technically my half-sibling, for all intents and purposes now, she is just my sister - no half about it.

I was born in the summer. By winter, he was gone. He would leave my mom for wife #3. My mom had full, sole custody of me; there was never a question, never a fight. He didn't just decide to leave my mom, he decided to leave me. I didn't see him on weekends. I didn't go spend a week with him during summer vacations. I didn't share holidays with him. I didn't really know him. But when I was young, that didn't seem to bother me. It wasn't until later that I would start to have feelings of hurt and resentment. And when those feelings hit, they hit hard.

"What a child will believe. You never loved me."
"Maybe someday when I look back I'll be able to say, you didn't mean to be cruel, somebody hurt you too."
Madonna's "Oh Father" was a song that hit me emotionally when it came out. Not that the situation with my father was quite the same as the lyrics stated. But these particular lyrics were words that would play over in my mind many times in my late teens/early twenties. The months leading up to my wedding and the strange, hurtful things he said to my mom and to me were true tests of those specific song lyrics.

On the morning of April 21, 2016 I received a voice mail from wife #5 stating that my father was in hospice and he wasn't doing well. If I needed to know more, I could call her back in the evening. Not one to be able to receive news like this and let it go, I could not wait until the evening. I was just about to call my sister when she called me. We spoke at great length about the calls we had just received and what was to come. We knew he had been in failing health. To be honest, we weren't sure if we'd actually get a call if and when he was in his final days, or when he'd pass away. Wife #5 wasn't exactly the friendliest, or a fountain of information. Thankfully she did give us the courtesy of that call in his final days.

This set off a series of emotional indifference and emotional lows. I never knew how I'd feel when this time came.

Would I be sad?
Would I be glad?
Would I be hurt?
Would I be ok?

I told my boss what was going on, because my mind wasn't fully on work that day. She asked if I was going to fly down to see him, because I may regret not going to say good-bye. I wasn't going to go. Sure, the main deterrent was that I didn't have the money to book a flight. But what would it accomplish, me flying half way across the country to see a man I barely knew and who was barely conscious? My sister and her husband decided to go. And with them, I sent a note for her to read to him.


Within hours of his death, I was involved in a text message conversation with the half-brother from wife #3. These conversations would go on for days. He was very excited to have contact with the siblings he never knew. For me, it was very overwhelming. This was a stranger. But this was also my brother. I wanted to know him, and the others, growing up. And now, here was this opportunity to know them, yet I found myself hesitant to do so.

What if they didn't want to know me? What if they did, but end up not liking me? In some respects I thought it didn't really matter because I went 43 years without them and was just fine. But in other respects the excitement and emotion of having them in my life after 43 years did matter. And the last year of "new" family has been a mix of it all. I gained a new cousin and an aunt and uncle, as well. Interestingly enough, we've all had similar situations of not knowing this man very well, or anything about our "family". The doors have been opened - now we just see who walks through them and how often.

Looking back on the 43 years I had my father in my life, the total amount of physical time spent with him (not including the couple of months he was in and out when I was baby) was less than 1 week worth of time. In reality, I don't know if even adds up to 1 full 24 hour day. Sure, there were phone calls here and there, as well as cards, letters, and emails from time to time. But physical, face to face time? Rare moments, at best.

Would I be sad?
Would I be glad?
Would I be hurt?
Would I be ok?

Turns out, it's all of the above.

I'm sad that the person who helped create me is gone. He was still my father, even if he was horrible at being so.
I'm glad that I was able to say good-bye in my own way and that he's no longer sick.
I'm hurt that he never took the time to be a real dad to me, or the time to get to know me, his son-in-law, or his grandson.
I'm ok. I always have been and will continue to be. Because while everything changed, nothing changed at all.