talking about my dad...
Oct 21, 2021 12:40:13 GMT
Post by morgan on Oct 21, 2021 12:40:13 GMT
Here is my story. Please be patient with me.
My mother and father divorced in the early 70s, when I was a baby. My father was a heavy alcoholic and never wanted anything to do with my brother and I. This lead to lots of issues especially with my brother (Anger management, thoughts of suicide, ect) I too had my own “daddy” issues. I was angry with my father and eventually felt numb. I didn’t go to his funeral when he died. I stopped visiting my father’s family in my mid teens. I didn’t really see the point.
Now that I am an adult and have children of my own, my need to connect with family has grown significantly. My paternal grandmother was recently put into a home with dementia in America. I lost both of my mother’s parents to Covid and my father’s mother is my last grandparent. I flew over to see her for what I believe to be the last time. While I was there I had the longest conversation with my aunt that I have ever had. She told me that she had been going through my grandmother’s house and subsequently my father’s things. She found a box of love letters that dated all the way back to the 70s right up to the day he died. With a grim and comforting tone, she told me the letters were from a man. My mother was with us at the time and she said that she too had found these letters and knew of this man in 1976. Being so young (they married when she was 16/17 years old) she didn’t understand why or what it was all about.
My aunt told me that my grandfather would try to severely beat “the feminine” out of him on a daily basis, from a very young age. I found that my father had a police record for things like lewd behaviour, public intoxication, public nudity (you get the picture). I also found that my father’s middle sister liked to torture him by setting him up and calling the police. He called her to pick him up after a bender once. She picked him up, and when he passed out in the passenger seat, she parked the car on the side of the highway and left him there. The police showed up and because he was the only one in the car, and he couldn’t prove that he wasn’t driving, he got a charge of driving while intoxicated. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, his previous record did him no favours.
Learning all of this about my father sent my head in a spin! I was horrified to hear that he had such a painful life. I was so overwhelmed with a sense of joy that my father didn’t leave ME. I was angry with my mother, although I didn’t really blame her, for keeping this from me. I also felt robbed. I like to think of myself as an open minded person who accepts anyone. I kept thinking how awesome it would have been, if he had told me the truth. I painted a picture in my mind of how we could have been so close and friends. I would have loved him with all of my soul. Sadly, my father hated himself and lived with the pain and guilt that stemmed from a life of abuse and rejection. I don’t think my magic mental picture would have been a reality, but I like to think it would.
My father was a brilliant artist, woodcraftsman, and a gentle, kind, and loving soul to anyone who ever met him. I was told that he loved me more than any thing on earth and everyone who met him, loved him. I thought he didn’t care or that he didn’t want children or that he loved booze more than his family. I was wrong. He was a broken man trying to survive in a backwoods small town. His shame took him from his family and the man he loved all of his life. My mom told me, that at his funeral there was a man she didn’t know, asking for me. He wanted to meet the “famous Morgan” that my father talked about non stop. She wondered if that was “him”. Sadly, I heard he died not long after, and I guess we will never know. I never even knew my mom sent him photos of me and my achievements over the years. “They” loved him so much while in prison that he was aloud to leave the prison to hand carve all of the bookshelves in the County courthouse as his “job”. They are still there to this day. I hear they are beautiful. I would like to see them someday.
I am desperate for someone to talk to. To hear someone else’s experiences of being gay, of having a gay child or parent, of being gay in a world where it is illegal and shamed, of morning the loss of a life we could have had, why couldn’t I have gotten to know this amazing man that everyone loved? I dated girls in my younger years (he was not to know that because we never talked) Not that I could relate to anything he went through. But it could have been a start. Maybe?
Thank you for reading my story. There doesn’t seem to be a support group that deals with what I am going though.
My mother and father divorced in the early 70s, when I was a baby. My father was a heavy alcoholic and never wanted anything to do with my brother and I. This lead to lots of issues especially with my brother (Anger management, thoughts of suicide, ect) I too had my own “daddy” issues. I was angry with my father and eventually felt numb. I didn’t go to his funeral when he died. I stopped visiting my father’s family in my mid teens. I didn’t really see the point.
Now that I am an adult and have children of my own, my need to connect with family has grown significantly. My paternal grandmother was recently put into a home with dementia in America. I lost both of my mother’s parents to Covid and my father’s mother is my last grandparent. I flew over to see her for what I believe to be the last time. While I was there I had the longest conversation with my aunt that I have ever had. She told me that she had been going through my grandmother’s house and subsequently my father’s things. She found a box of love letters that dated all the way back to the 70s right up to the day he died. With a grim and comforting tone, she told me the letters were from a man. My mother was with us at the time and she said that she too had found these letters and knew of this man in 1976. Being so young (they married when she was 16/17 years old) she didn’t understand why or what it was all about.
My aunt told me that my grandfather would try to severely beat “the feminine” out of him on a daily basis, from a very young age. I found that my father had a police record for things like lewd behaviour, public intoxication, public nudity (you get the picture). I also found that my father’s middle sister liked to torture him by setting him up and calling the police. He called her to pick him up after a bender once. She picked him up, and when he passed out in the passenger seat, she parked the car on the side of the highway and left him there. The police showed up and because he was the only one in the car, and he couldn’t prove that he wasn’t driving, he got a charge of driving while intoxicated. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, his previous record did him no favours.
Learning all of this about my father sent my head in a spin! I was horrified to hear that he had such a painful life. I was so overwhelmed with a sense of joy that my father didn’t leave ME. I was angry with my mother, although I didn’t really blame her, for keeping this from me. I also felt robbed. I like to think of myself as an open minded person who accepts anyone. I kept thinking how awesome it would have been, if he had told me the truth. I painted a picture in my mind of how we could have been so close and friends. I would have loved him with all of my soul. Sadly, my father hated himself and lived with the pain and guilt that stemmed from a life of abuse and rejection. I don’t think my magic mental picture would have been a reality, but I like to think it would.
My father was a brilliant artist, woodcraftsman, and a gentle, kind, and loving soul to anyone who ever met him. I was told that he loved me more than any thing on earth and everyone who met him, loved him. I thought he didn’t care or that he didn’t want children or that he loved booze more than his family. I was wrong. He was a broken man trying to survive in a backwoods small town. His shame took him from his family and the man he loved all of his life. My mom told me, that at his funeral there was a man she didn’t know, asking for me. He wanted to meet the “famous Morgan” that my father talked about non stop. She wondered if that was “him”. Sadly, I heard he died not long after, and I guess we will never know. I never even knew my mom sent him photos of me and my achievements over the years. “They” loved him so much while in prison that he was aloud to leave the prison to hand carve all of the bookshelves in the County courthouse as his “job”. They are still there to this day. I hear they are beautiful. I would like to see them someday.
I am desperate for someone to talk to. To hear someone else’s experiences of being gay, of having a gay child or parent, of being gay in a world where it is illegal and shamed, of morning the loss of a life we could have had, why couldn’t I have gotten to know this amazing man that everyone loved? I dated girls in my younger years (he was not to know that because we never talked) Not that I could relate to anything he went through. But it could have been a start. Maybe?
Thank you for reading my story. There doesn’t seem to be a support group that deals with what I am going though.