Well that is honestly not true, I just don't know where to start. I found out yesterday that my father died 18 months ago.
I realize that does need some explaining. First, I will explain that I have been an estranged daughter for 20 years. What that means is no contact with my father and his family and limited contact with my birth mother and her family.
For the majority of my life I have felt their loss accutely and while the estrangements happened for many reasons over the years - I never lost the hope that we would one day find our way back to one another to heal the old wounds and be able to move forward in whatever direction was best for us at that new time.
Over the years I have either kept in touch on a limited basis or just kept tabs on how they were doing and what they were up to, but just never felt the time was right for me to re-engage in one of the fractured lives & relationships. I realize that may seem judgemental and in hindsight it is rather one sided - but at that time my focus was on survival and growth as a person.
Over the last few years - and particularly accelerated - when my husband and I were faced with unexplained infertility after deciding to expand our family - combined with the exceptionally painful loss of the woman who I also called mom - I finally felt inside that something was missing, out of place - and needed to be fixed.
I'm not sure if I explained that correctly - but losing this mom - made me think about the mother and father I had walked away from so many years ago. Somehow I knew that until I healed this, I would not allow myself to become a parent.
Soooo...I decided last Friday that I was ready to take the step to reconnect with those parts of my life and reached out - first to my father, then I would reach out to my mother again. To my suprise I heard via email on Tuesday - from a totally innocent party that my father died 18 months ago. Nobody told me. Nobody tried to find me to tell me.
They could have contacted me through my my mother. I'm trying not to be bitter and hurt because it was me that walked away and at times of grief its hard to do the right thing for every person.
The problem is that now I won't get a chance to tell him that I love him, that I forgive him and that I'm sorry for all of the wasted time. I didn't like who he was and I didn't like the things he did, but over the years I have realized that he was human, fallable and just as I had changed, there was the great possibilty - more like probability - that he had changed too.
The good news is - after tracking down some family members, they did confirm that he had managed to turn his life around and was finally able to become the man he always wanted to be, the man I knew he had inside of him. The bad news is - its too late for me and that hurts beyond words. Sounds selfish I realize, but that is the reality of how I feel right now.
If there is an irony here - beyond the obvious, it is that I found on an another emotionally charged day. You see my wonderful mom - actually my mother in law passed away 9 1/2 months ago and Tuesday would have been her 48th wedding anniversary with her husband. My husband and I had invited his father to spend the evening with us so he would not be alone on such an incredibly powerful day.
Maybe its just me.. but that is too much grief for one day and I'm not sure what to do with it.
The other hard part is that the rest of the world has been grieving for him for 18 months and are now in a much different place than I am. I am his only biological child - and I am alone in this grief. I don't know if it is my karma for having walked away or if it is just because I stayed away for too long.
If there is one "good" thing to come out of yesterday - it was that my second response (after calling my husband) was to call my mom. After 3+ years of silence between us, it was easy to bridge the gap by calling for such a reason. She had so much to say and I was grateful that she was there for me to share this with. I don't know who else I could have talked to about this but it did make sense that it would be my mom.
I've been looking all day for other sources of help but cannot seem to find anything specifically for daughters that estrange themselves from their families and try to come back when its too late to do anything about it. That's why I started this blog. I don't know what it will look like or the complete direction it will take, but I guess that too is part of the process of life.
I like every other person on the planet lives a busy, complicated life. Some times are busier than others, some situations more complicated than others. What I am hoping to build for myself and my family is a loving, warm, compassionate life that can be enjoyed and remembered with fun, grace, dignity and integrity.
My head hurts so I'm going to stop typing for today... see you tomorrow, or tomorrow, or tomorrow....
P.S. the Picture is from the Bonnaventure cemetary in Savannah Georgia in the Hollow Hill area.
