My father was the man who taught me about silent films, baseball, card games, and cursing. Most importantly, he taught what not to look for in a man. Yes, I said it.
I'm going to share my story. I'm not trying to get petty glances or sympathy, but I am telling so you can all understand why I'm incapable of having a healthy relationship. Yes, I can also admit that. I suck at it.
My father was smooth with his words. He was my mother's first love. They were the right-out-high-school-and-married-straight-to-the-military couple. I was of course the honeymoon love child. At the time my mother and father were living in California. When my father was deployed, coincidentally around the time of my birth, my mother rode the train across the country and that's how I was oh-so-fortunate to be a natural born Toledoan. The first time my father ever saw me was when I was two months old. Shortly after arriving back from deployment, my father started to lose control of his anger. (This is the exact same anger that he generously passed on to me.) My mother found herself scared for her life, as for mine, and moved out. Soon afterwards, a divorce was filed and she had met and settled down with my now-stepfather. However, my father was not able to commit like my mother. (Hence- my shitty dating habits/problems.) A couple of years later my father met Kim1.0. A short while after, she was pregnant. At the same time, my mother was also pregnant. I had gone from being an only child, to a kid with two half sisters. Both the exact same age, but not twins.
I'm sure you can imagine the confused looks I get from others when I explain that I have two sisters who are the same age but aren't twins. I always have to pick through the explanation with a fine tooth comb.
Within a month after my father's daughter was born, he was sent to prison. He abused Kim1.0 and she filed charges against him. My relationship with my father went from minimal to none at all. My grandmother made the occasional drive to southern Ohio so I could visit with him, but it was always awkward. He pressed me about not writing, and got irritated when I didn't make eye contact while speaking to him. Because of course a seven year old would be capable of doing both of those things. Everyone would ask me why I didn't look anything like my dad because whenever there were school events my stepfather would show up. I'm short, stocky build, blonde, and have big blue eyes. My stepfather is tall, dark skinned, and has dark eyes.
Duh.
Fourth grade came and went, and my father finally came home. By that time our family completely lost contact with his other daughter. Could you blame Kim1.0? Nope.
The visitation with him went from none at all to every other weekend. For a few months, I actually had a father. We ate junk food and watched Shrek way more than we should have. It doesn't sound like much of a relationship, but it was all I had so I wasn't going to complain about the stipulations that came with it. My father met a nice woman named Lisa and actually maintained a relationship with her for a long time. She had adored that I was part of the package deal. It was the second family I truly believed I deserved at the time. Then everything fell apart again. My father could no longer cap his anger and Lisa was tired of being his walking target. They broke up and before no time, he was already introducing me to someone knew.
This someone new was Kim2.0.
My father started dating Kim2.0 in the summer and by fall they had packed up their belongings and moved to Georgia together. He did the whole "You can come down and visit and stay in your new room whenever you want" thing. Eventually the calls came in less, and I had to hear through the grapevine in the sixth grade from random family members that they got married that December.
Then spring break came.
I was on vacation with my parents and they told me that they had news to tell me, but weren't going to tell me until we got back home. I still remember to this day. I thought, "mom is pregnant and I'm finally going to have a brother." I kept my enthusiasm to myself.
We returned home and I was bursting to know what the news was. My stepfather sat me down and told me that my father was in prison, again. I sat there calm not knowing what to expect. Then the bomb dropped. My father and Kim2.0 got a little too drunk one night. My father's temper got the worst of him, as it always did, but this time things went too far. My father murdered Kim2.0. He was going to be in prison for the rest of his life.
I couldn't process. I just remember crying on my stepfather's shoulders. Then leaving the house to go for a walk. I didn't come home for over five hours. I can't tell you what I was more upset about. The fact that my father was in prison again, or the fact that I was literally too embarrassed by him this time to tell anyone what he had done to put himself back in prison.
I don't know if it was my utter curiosity or my lack of smarts, but I decided to start writing him again. My stupid 12 year old brain just wanted to know what he was thinking, feeling, etc. Writing him for the first few months was okay. We never brought up what happened. He would send me trivia questions from his favorite eras in history, and I would send him letters with my life goals. It was a twisted relationship, but it was ours and I wasn't in the position to let him go just yet.
The following year I was transitioned into the middle school. With the amount of homework and activities I was involved in, our contact started to lag again. By freshman year, my father's temper started to show throughout his letters. I wasn't "good enough" because I couldn't take ten minutes out of my week to drop a letter in the mail. Apparently the little bit of my childhood that I was still hanging onto was not on his priority list.
On December 1st I received a letter in the mail from my father. It stated that he was tired of the games that I "played" with him. His hands were tied from the pain that I had caused him. He wrote that I had until January 1st to decide whether or not I wanted him to be in my life. If I did not respond by then, I was no longer allowed to contact him. Considering my age, I was obviously hurt because of my equal temper problem. So instead of trying to reason, I said "fuck you" and never wrote by the deadline.
January 1st came and went and I thought it was all over with. About a week went by and I came home from school to find a piece of mail with my name on it. Only, it wasn't my actual name. It was my first name with my stepfather's last name. I opened it to find a letter and a pile of photos I had sent him. The photos were ripped into tiny pieces. I won't go into crazy detail, but I will use an exact quote. "You're a cunt bred from a dishonest whore."
"You're a cunt bred from a dishonest whore."
Those words have ran through my head since I was 15 years old.
Almost three years later, senior year was finally here. Everyone was so excited to be done and move on to bigger and better things. One of those things, was becoming legal. I was one of the older kids from my graduating class. My birthday was in November. The day of my 18th birthday came and I thought I was on top of the world. I skipped school that day, got my first tattoo, took a road trip to Ann Arbor, went bowling, and hung out with my closest friends and family. Being an adult was so easy.
Exactly one month and four days after I turned 18, I received a call that my father had committed suicide in prison. He ripped apart his bed sheets and tied together a homemade noose. I had never wanted to be a child again so badly in my whole entire life. Because I was 18 and my father's wife was deceased, the state of Ohio legally saw me as old enough to make all the important decisions. While my friends were picking out bedding for their dorms and on the hunt for the perfect prom dress, I was looking for a church that would allow me to have a memorial service for my murderer father. While my friends were making out with boys from other schools and tie-dyeing their senior wear, I was signing the paperwork to give consent to have my father's body cremated. While my friends were receiving their college acceptance letters, I was receiving my father's death certificate.
With all the hatred I had built up prior to his death, there were no feelings left when I found out what he had done. Suicide, no matter who does it, is selfish. I was robbed of every ounce of childhood because even while he was out of my life, he still managed to ruin it.
Luckily, Robin Williams won't leave behind the same legacy as my father. And luckily I have made it this far in my life without being thrown in to the loony bin. But the point behind my unfortunately true story is that the real tragedy or breaking news isn't that Robin Williams committed suicide today. The real tragedy is the family he has left behind to deal with the aftermath of his decisions.
My father taught me about baseball. Luckily, I taught myself how to avoid getting hit by a curve ball.
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