DADDY

MY DAD !!!

So I took a few days off from writing anything…Writing about my dad is really something new and out of the ordinary. I had for a long time believed that my dad was a cold man with no emotions and I had also believed much of the false programming my mother had formatted into my brother and I. I am not going into all my mother said as this post is really about my experiences with him. F. (as I will call him) is a very complex person, a man with whom I grew up and whom I always thought had no emotions or concerns for us. But yet in the last few years my dad opened up more and in fact expressed a lot more love and emotion than I ever thought possible from him.

My earliest memories of F. were when I was a child and he carried me on his head or his smiling at me. Yet this only lasted until I was about 7 because after that he rarely smiled and played with us. As children he did impose some discipline and I can remember when he used to argue with us and give us a lash or two. There was a few times he used a belt but my brother and I would hide it and once we even burnt it. But suddenly all discipline from F. stopped, the reason being that his dad was an abusive man and he did not want to turn out like him. So even though he would “buff” (verbally chastise) sometimes, my mom did all the beating.

F, did take us to the beach a lot, especially Maracas, Mayaro and Toco- three popular beaches in Trinidad- and we did have fun, yet… again I can’t say he ever went into the sea with us, it was always mom who supervised. What I liked most was when F. and mom would take us out to a restaurant as a family and also when we would go crab hunting on the North Coast of Trinidad with my grandparents. To me we always seemed happy then and close like a true family should be. But by 10 years of age I began to see a change; trips to the beach became less and less, as also to the restaurants. My parents used to go out a lot to dinners and parties, I know this because we always got dropped off by my grandparents; this too tapered off. The few cinema outings and crab hunting stopped and when I asked why, my parents would say that they were busy or tired.

F. at this point began to spend his time at the club drinking and also taking trips with his friends for a few days. Also, he would have only time for friends and his Lodge meetings. When he came home he would be drunk and this was something that continues till this day. He used to smoke but as a child I would deliberately cough and wave my hand in my face so he would stop; this annoyed him so much that he finally did stop. Every time we had to go out and he would come for us F. would be an hour late or would not come at all. The excuses were lame to say the least and I remember crying and wondering if I had done something wrong. When it came to school he used to drop me in the morning and pick me up after school, but this stopped and a driver from his business would pick and drop my brother and me off, F. said it was because of his job and that threats were being made to kidnap us and we needed protection. Yet it was just something that added up in my mind to him not caring. Visits to his office became rare occasions and even this stopped after a while.

At home, F. would just sleep the day away and when he woke up he would stroll around and then watch television. His favourite shows were westerns, especially John Wayne movies, and he also read Westerns. The few times he took us to church were odd since you could tell he was uncomfortable, but this ended soon enough. I remember him saying that only hypocrites went to church and his relationship with God was personal and not in church. In fact I did catch him a few times on his knees crying and praying to God. As my brother and I got older the fights and arguments between mom and him got worse, he never hit her and I remember mom saying she hit him once and would never do it again because he gave her such a cold look as if he could kill her. These arguments revolved around my brother and me or money problems; most of the money issues revolved around him drinking our family budget down the drain. There were arguments about me and I always wondered if I was responsible for all of them.

I can’t remember any conversations with him that really stuck in my head since many were when he was drunk and incoherent. As F. was a tall man , about 6 feet 4 inches and weighed about 350 pounds, this did scare me and when he was angry I usually hid. F. was a great business man and was a whiz at math, something I did not inherit. I looked like him and my mother as noted reminded me of it every day. He was very charitable and would help out all his relatives and friends, so much so that mom argued that he was neglecting us. Yet when you meet anyone on the streets they would say that my dad was a great man. I know he spent a lot of time at the club which put on a lot of charity lunches and his famous Bar B Que sauce which he made was very popular, on many occasions he would take me along and it was fun. Dad is a great cook and I learned a lot from him. One trip to Cedros in the South of Trinidad for a cricket match was also a lot of fun. There were a few guys “limes” (get-togethers) when he took my brother and me to get shrimp or just to help out poor people, these have stuck out in my mind. But his friends always tagged along in the car and when we were alone on a drive he did not say much.

Dad was never one to say he loved us or show any emotion. I never knew him to hug or kiss, except for the few times he kissed mom. I know he used to say that crying and kissing were not “macho” or “manly.” It is because of these attitudes and feelings that I preferred dealing with mom and I tried not to cry or have emotions. Every decision in the house was made by mom and dad only dished out the money. F’s attitude and behaviour really made what mom said about him seem true. As I got older I had little contact with him in that he was never home and when he was, he was sleeping or drunk. I felt as though I was boarding with a stranger.

Then, when I was in secondary school I discovered a dark secret of my dad’s which came by accident to me. My class had just gotten a new Spanish teacher, a very sexy one I might add, and I liked her a lot. I befriended her and I found out that she knew my uncle A. who was my dad’s brother. My driver began to drop my teacher home and on one occasion she told me she met my mom and dad. I asked when and where and when she said it was by my uncle I knew something was odd about it since I knew that my mom would not be caught dead by him. I asked her to describe this woman with my dad and the person she described was not my mother. I became very aware that my dad was having an affair and I did not know what to do. I actually believed it, more because of all that I knew about him and the fact that this teacher would not lie about something like that. She did apologize about it but the damage was done, I did not know what to do since, to tell the truth, it really had not hit home yet. I went to my brother and told him and for the first time in my life my brother and I had a discussion that was more than arguments over ownership of toys or clothes. We decided to tell mom together, which we were scared to do but felt we had to. When we sat down to tell her she was calm and listened as though she knew already. When we were finished C. said she knew and had known for some time now, that she was hiding it from us because she did not want us to be hurt and that dad was blackmailing her to stay.

Looking back at this eventful moment in time I know that I should have felt hurt, pain, even anger but honestly I did not feel anything. Like all hurts in my life I put it into a nice box and pushed it out of the way. Even after, when my mom and dad decided to split, since there was no reason to hide it any more or stay for the children, my attitude was very calm and normal. Dad told us he wanted to speak to us and sat at the end of my brother’s bed. He started to cry and said that he and mom could not get along anymore and that he was leaving. Neither my brother or I cried; we accepted it and went on with life. Dad packed up and left and for the next year, except for the occasional visit to give mom money, we did not see or hear from him. At the time it did not feel any different from when he spent all his time with the guys in the club; just, instead of coming home drunk, he simply did not come home. F. spent that year with his girlfriend, whom I was told was “ugly like hell,” but even this did not bother me. My mom however I must admit was no innocent, even before I found out about dad I felt something odd was going on with my mom and her best friend S. This guy who was a big business man who worked away, would, on coming back to Trinidad, visit my mom and she would send us out of the room when he did. This occurred when dad was away at work. When he left for the year the visits became more frequent and I really thought mom was dating him. Around this time, too, dad began to seriously court mom again, giving her expensive jewelry and seeking forgiveness. I thought it was great on two levels, first he was being romantic and second I would have a dad again. Mom on the other hand said she would take him back to teach him a lesson and to milk him for everything he had since she deserved it. So after a year of separation he moved back in. Mom also said it was because he could not keep up two budgets.

I know that dad tried his best and still does to make mom happy, but in the end they got separate beds and then separate rooms. It is only now, since they have moved that they could sleep in the same room but again in separate beds. Up to this day mom and dad still have verbal fights and the only time they ever stop is when mom throws in his face his “adulterous philandering”. Our relationship with him never improved- instead it got worse. We accepted the idea of milking him for all he had and like mom used his guilt in not being there and the affair to get him to do things. The fact is we were worse than what he did and this continued well into my twenties. F.’s drinking got progressively worse as did his time out also. He did have a circle of business friends that he got close to and F. got mom to start going with him for show. I never liked any of my dad’s friends or their children and that’s because they were all into power and money, showing off and sticking it to others. My mom would come home after such visits and gossip and speak badly about them, which made it even worse.

Interestingly enough, one day a few years later on while I was away working I heard on the radio that a plane had crashed on take off from another Caribbean Island and that all on board had been lost. When they called the names of those on board I recognized all as being my dad’s circle of friends. I did not hear my dads name but I know he was suppose to go on that outing, which was to see a cricket match, what saved him was F.’s fear of flying and small planes. I know God was giving him a second chance and waking him up to making a decision in his life, I also know he knew that because not only did he get really upset about it but he tried to really change his life, every night he would be on his knees praying. Yet a couple of years later he returned to drinking and surrounding himself with a new circle of friends.

Death has always stalked my dad, especially in the last 15 years. There were many times in his drunken state that he has come close to death. Once F. was so drunk he fell off a boat and sank to the bottom of the sea, my brother had to dive in and after a desperate search pulled him out only after feeling his hair. Another time, he and my mom were leaving a party and when she turned around he was at the bottom of a pool. Friends had to pull him out and resuscitate him. Doctors have told him he was living on borrowed time since his drinking was destroying his liver and yet he continues to drink. F. is very stubborn and hates being told what to do, even if God told him to do something he would do the opposite. I remember one night I heard screeching outside and when I went to see what it was, it was my dad coming home on his rims, I had to lift him inside and the story was he hit the curb and the tires burst but it was late and he decided to come home.

Even though he played the big strong man, things did bother him, he hated funerals and anything that brought emotions and he did take on things which made him sick. I know he hated funerals and going to visit sick friends. I saw this in how he dealt with mom, the more she berated him the more he drank and stayed away. On one occasion he was driving down the highway drunk and a woman, herself drunk, was crossing the road and he knocked her down and killed her. The case of manslaughter against him went on for years. My dad had nightmares for a long time and he would cry about it a lot in private, always trying to hide it. Every time he had to go to court he would get angry and uptight and you just had to stay away from him. In the end the case was thrown out since many witnesses had died in the case but even after dad still had nightmares and got upset around the anniversary of the event. F. also took on his business, when the workers were giving trouble or there were financial problems he got all worked up and drank more on these occasions. This drinking was as a result I believe of what he learned from his parents, his dad and mom were also alcoholics, and it was F. who had to make the drinks, naturally he learned to associate drinks with problems and since his parents encouraged him to drink he did.

Other than financial obligations my dad never really talked to us about love or even discussed feelings with us. I know he was homophobic, in fact he said he would prefer his sons were dead if he ever found out that we were gay. This freaked me out because I have seen my dad in action, one lash or cuff from him could kill. Added to this he said if we ever came home with earrings or tattoos he would rip them out. Mind you I dared not try to defy this order. There were a few times that he did try to take charge of the household, when we were having financial problems he called us together to sit down and budget, but because of my mothers barrage of comments it ended in a shouting match. Another time he tried to defend me. I had not gone to church for some time; in fact I had felt the church a farce. My mom was arguing with me on a point and I thought it was about church. When I admitted that I had not attended for some time my mother came down on me like brimstone and fire. Dad tried to intervene on my behalf telling her that the “boy can make decisions on his own and if he does not want to go you can’t force him”. Of course my mom laid waste to his comment and told him he had no rights in disciplining her son, that he gave up those rights a long time ago. Even though it was a glimmer I felt proud that he could dare stand up to her.

F. was very much interested in my having girlfriends, so much so that if I was spending time with any guy friends he would wonder if something was wrong with me. I remember him trying to get me to be more macho by drinking a hot beer at the club once, mind you it never had the desired effect. Once he even offered to take me to a house of ill-repute to have an experience with a nice young girl. He looked relieved when I did have a girlfriend but that was about all the concern he ever showed. When he meet S. my future wife he seemed more interested than before and would time to time ask me about her. He also looked relieved when I was getting married and seemed sincere when he met my wife’s father. My mom had said that my dad was the one who did not want me spending money on the wedding and he was not putting a cent into it. I have come to realize that was not true.

After my wife and I severed ties with the family, the last person I thought would ever talk to us or even dare defy my mom was my dad, I was surprised when he called. I started to really see that dad was a caring man; in fact I believed he was happy to have me to himself. Our first meeting after we severed ties was a strange one, in that he hugged me. It was a bit odd since we never did that before in my life. Then after a few more visits and chats on the phone I actually heard him say he loved me, something not even my mother ever did. Soon after this came kisses, in one swoop something I had asked God for was coming true. One thing I do know is all the people I thought would stick by us deserted us and yet the one person I felt would desert me, dad, did not. He actually gave S. and me a lot of financial help where no one else did, I remember when we needed a loan and F. said “he lived and died for his two sons and everything he had was ours,” this really touched me and I did cry. Even though all of this new found love and father/son bond felt good, I wondered when the bottom would fall out of the barrel. You see I was happy not to have my relatives in my life and everything I spoke to dad about I knew was going back to my mom. However, I realized that dad did not like conflict and he also liked to please, since he felt he was forever seeking mom’s approval so he did his best to influence me to make amends for peace’ sake. Many of his statements and concerns about us and our children came directly from my mother and I resented that he did not have a back bone to stand up for himself. Even the financial help held the hidden gift of obligations and ties that would draw me back to my family.

And yes I did see my mother again and after a second time and final severing from my mother he called to find out what happened. When I told him I had an affair (beating my mother to it since I knew she would embellish it to make it suit her) and explained how her reaction triggered a reinstatement of the separation, he sounded very upset and told me he was sorry to hear this and asked how was S. After this God put it in me to speak to him one on one and not holding back. We meet in the club and, as I said in a previous post, spoke to him about all that my mom had said about him. Dad really proved all the things mom said wrong; he spoke of his love for us and admitted many mistakes and faults and even cried, as I said, about things he never did and which demonized him. I did get to speak about my affair and I asked him if I embarrassed him because mom had said that he was embarrassed by me. This got him angry for he said he never said this, I also asked him if he thought I was mad and should be put away and he noted that if I were then the entire world should be put away. In the end he hugged me and I told him that the only person I wanted to have a relationship with was him, mom was dead to me. Since then dad and I meet or chat on the phone to discuss how we are, his grandchildren and how my wife S. is doing.

Dealing with my past, I truly pondered my dad and what he meant to my life. I really turned to God for this because in the past I would use logic to make sense of things. While growing up, I wanted that male bonding; I was grieving for the loss of my dad in my life. I cried out for that male influence and love that was really missing. That stability I needed in my life that only a dad could give. In my search for male love and fatherly influence I really began to look to guys with strong and domineering personalities to satisfy my desire.

What I know now is that the only true dad that I really needed, the one that is the greatest role model and gives the right love is God, no other. Putting a earthly dad first, and obsessing about it really makes man my god. I can truly say that yes I have a relationship with my dad but it is defined in the way God wants it to be, God is first in my life and if my earthly dad is there or not it does not matter. No man can shake my dedication and love for God. That empty feeling of loss and search for a dad has been replaced by the one true dad. I am no longer a slave to wanting the love or recognition from my dad and in releasing dad and these feelings, God has answered my prayers.