Preface: I have always wanted to write about growing up with a super independent mother and an old fashioned, deeply troubled, chauvinistic father. A friend of mine wrote an essay talking about how she came into the world and how she ultimately grew from her experiences. It spurred me on to write about what I went through as a child and a young teen and ultimately through my fathers death.
Childhood
I was always a tomboy, at least as far back as I can recall. My father called me his little monkey. I climbed trees with the best of them and I ate bananas like they were candy. I also ate candy like it was candy, but who's counting? I spent my days chasing down boys at school and wrestling them to the ground so that my friends could kiss them. When I was challenged about my strength or the fact I would rather play with cars than dolls, or even that I was in gymnastics and ballet... I beat them up. One such instance of this is Forest. He was my guy buddy at school when I was in elementary school. We palled around when I wasn't hanging with the other girls, typically on the playground. I remember we had just finished re-enacting "Annie" in the fort and Forest came over to challenge me. He said "Girls aren't strong!" in response to something I had said. I replied telling him we were, and pointed out that I was in gymnastics and ballet. He said that didn't matter, we still weren't strong. Little boy speak or repeating after his male figure of choice? Anyway, I very pointedly stated girls are strong and jumped off my perch, running after him. He took off like a rocket. I caught up to him, tripped him, shoved him against the fence and pinned him there. I said what about now? He refused to admit I was strong so I leaned all my weight into him and hit him on the shoulder. Now? Yeah ok, now he would admit we were strong. Needless to say this had caught the attention of the teachers but they didn't really seem mad, they seemed to think it was funny. I have no idea why that is. There was little I would put up with when it came to being myself and others perceptions of me when I was little, especially boys.
To my mother, I was the little girl she tried to put in dresses and pink. I wasn't having that, even as young as six I fought against it. She managed to keep me in pink for a few more years, but I refused to wear dresses except on special occasions. Guilt is a very strong force in my mother, it was hard to fight it. Besides, you can't truly climb trees in a dress after all. Her independence was rubbing off on me. I was also her singing buddy. We would drive around, to anywhere really, and just sing. It was usually Anne Murray and this is where I learned to love the craft. I was told I was singing at 2 and I learned harmony at 4. I totally have my mother to thank for that. I still sing everywhere, but especially in the car on the way to somewhere.
I certainly didn't understand all the nuances or the underlying personalities at work in my family at the time. My father was a very sociable kind of person. Sometimes we would sit for an hour or more waiting for him while he had a conversation, sometimes in a car. This was acceptable to me because it had always been. It was very unacceptable to my mother. In addition to always expecting us to be waiting while he did his thing, he wanted a cooked meal when he got home and to sit in "his chair" and watch the news. I don't remember much about my mother catering to his needs, probably because that's just not who she is or was. I do remember that she would generally cook dinner however and it was always super tasty. We were expected to wash up for dinner and eat at the table for so many years. My father would demand I eat all my vegetables and drink my milk and I would have to stay at the dinner table until it was finished. After all there were starving people out there and if I didn't eat all my food, I was causing them harm and letting them down in someway. I hated milk, I refused to drink it because it made me ill. But that didn't matter to my father, what he said went and that was that. Often, I would prolong the drinking of it until he got tired of waiting and would go do his own thing. When he would finally leave, I would hide the milk or sneak to the bathroom or kitchen to pour it out. If my dad had ever caught me, I would have been spanked with a belt. As far as my memory serves, he never did catch me... for that.
There was an instance where the three of us went to a local boot store. The kind which are super common, or were at the time, in Texas and which sell many accessories fit for the modern day cowboy. In those days we wore our names on our t-shirts in large type, bold lettering. It was prime for kidnapping really. 'Hello stranger with candy who knows my name. I guess you really aren't a stranger huh? Sure I'll come with you to your creepy van with no windows.' I was sitting there while one of my parents, I think it was my mother, tried on some boots. I was playing with something on the floor, my brown hair back in a bright hair clip on one side. This drunk and very Southern cowboy sauntered up in his best drunk walk and then leaned down over me and said "You're a pretty little girl. How would you like to come home and cook and clean house for me?" I looked up at him very defiant and replied "My mother is not raising me to cook and clean house." I then went right back to my playing. He sauntered off with a very surprised look on his face. My father was mortified and angry. My mother laughed. I think the reason they weren't gunning for the cowboy is because in 1981, child predators weren't yet as common a thing as they are now and it likely didn't occur to anyone this invite may have been bordering on a psychosis or sociopathic tendency.
To say that I was daddy's little girl would be to say that the sky is blue. He had wanted another little boy, I believe, and the fact that I was so tomboyish was a decent compromise. I took after him in many ways. He was a super technician as far as I was (and am) concerned. There wasn't anything he couldn't fix. He would take me to work, let me 'help him' at his tech bench at home and show me how to do things. I'm not saying I'm a super technician, but I am good with mechanical and technical stuff. I don't have the degree he had however.
Aside from a distinct personality influence, I didn't really have a lot in common with my mother. I liked high places and often tried (sometimes succeeding) to get myself stuck. The huge tree that was in our yard was one such place. That took a huge ladder and some ingenuity on my father's part to get me down. I would sit on the roof, having climbed the 100 ft radio tower sitting a foot or so from the side of our house. This would drive my mom insane. She had nothing to complain about though, I was her independent little girl whether she liked it or not. She was also a caretaker, a trait that I didn't pick up as much as my sister did. When it comes to animals, I'm all about the care taking. People, I'm not as good with. She did teach me a lot about dealing with people different than I. Throughout my whole life, until she retired, she worked for MHMR or Mental Health Mental Retardation services in the various places we lived. She was great at her job and she would generally take me to work after picking me up from school. I learned how to interact with the, then known as 'client', folks who lived in the institution. Their titles have changed over the years but basically it would be the folks who were mentally disabled; most often because of a birth defect. I ended up having a really good friend there in her facility named Jimmy. He was a sweet 16 year old boy with the mind of an 8 year old. He protected me from the other clients and I grew to respect him and others like him. He is someone I will never forget.
I never did know how my father felt about those institutionalized people. I suspect it's because they had nothing to do with him and he tended to be selfish. He was fiercely loyal to people however. At least, from what I knew of him. His friends were his friends and that was how it was. If you crossed his bad side however, beware! He was so passive aggressive I'm not really sure how he managed.
When I was 6, one of my brothers was killed in a car accident. This was my father's son and my father was completely demolished by the loss. I remember waking up to the sound of the phone ringing in the middle of the night and then hysterics. I got out of bed to see what was going on. It was December 21st and my brother had just been killed. I was very close to him and while I didn't exactly understand everything, I felt his loss. It wasn't until a year later that I cried about it all. At the funeral, I was made to stay outside during the viewing of the body. I think that decision by my parents had a profound effect on me because to this day I cannot view a dead body when it's someone I know and loved. I just can't.
My brother from my mothers side lived with us for a while and at one point there was a horrifying altercation between my father and brother in the middle of the night and I was once again woken up. I will never forget what I saw and I lost a little respect for my father that night. I think he resented my brother for still being alive when his son wasn't.
At 8 years old, we moved to Colorado, much to my shy distress. Turns out, that the first year was one of the most unpleasant I can recall, but there was a silver lining. My parents got divorced shortly after ending up in Montrose. I was nine then and I was thoroughly devastated. We had moved and left my school mid-year where I was studying at fifth grade level instead of third grade. I went from an awesome private school to a horrific, biased public school. They refused to let me continue studying at fifth grade level because I was too young and they thought I wouldn't adapt. How wrong they were. That school broke me. It broke me in such a way that I learned how to be "diplomatic" (sort of) and how to deal with hatred and bigotry. Awesome for someone at 8 years old. I came out of my shell there. I was made fun of for being a Texan and saying silly things like "I'm fix'n to" go somewhere or do something as the case may be. Even the teacher treated me like pond scum. I was way ahead of the rest of the class and it felt like she resented me for it. Eventually she came around and awarded me for "Student of the Month" at the end of the year and basically accepted I wasn't trash. But losing my father and mother as one parental unit was so thoroughly heart breaking I had a hard time coping. I managed though and I credit that whole experience as one that built up my strength of character and ability to bounce back. It also got me to a point in life where I stopped caring what others thought of me.
My dad moved to a different city and things continued on, except now it was at two different residences. My mother got custody of me which broke my father's heart. He bought a trailer house out on an acre of land in the country and my mom and I ended up moving to Grand Junction, among the multiple other places we would live. Grand Junction was much more accepting of me, but by then I had lost most of my Texas-isms and my accent. Hate is a cruel but sometimes effective mistress.
As I got older, my father's control and hold on me got tighter. Where my mother afforded me many liberties based on trust, my father apparently didn't believe in this farce and tried to keep me his little tomboy forever. My bed times were ridiculous for a girl my age and boys should never be mentioned!
My father married again, and this time he found the perfect little wife. They actually sprung this marriage on me when I got to my father's house. Oh and I was made a witness as well. I remember calling my mother and crying about it over the phone. This was not a surprise I wanted. The new wife was happy to stay home and cook and clean house for him. Heaven forbid I be visiting and sitting in his chair watching TV when he came home. I was shooed out of the way like a bug and he was treated like a king in his castle. This started engendering a huge dislike in me for my father. Considering he was no longer close with his other daughters, it seems really irrational of him to have treated me this way. I felt like he was holding a grudge against me.
It only got worse. While my mother and I were doing pretty well for two completely different personalities living together, my father and I who had more in common were growing further apart. When I was 12, I was offered the chance to choose whom I lived with. Keeping in mind I was 12 and all I really thought about was school, friends, and fun, my last thought would have been to move again and lose my friends and change schools again, etc. My father, instead of being understanding and supportive was mean about my decision to stay with my mother. Someone forgot to tell him children need stability in their lives. He began being verbally abusive, saying things like I was only living with my mother because she had money. Insinuating that I had no moral standards and I was greedy and selfish. Heaven forbid I wanted to avoid being dirt poor. I chose to be "ok" instead. My mother was not rich, nor did she run off spending loads of money at that time. For him to say something so uncaring, selfish and greedy to his own daughter seemed beyond belief to me. He went on to say many other things to me over the years and with each foul treatment or comment, I started detesting him more.
Teen Drama
At some point we moved to Idaho, my mother and I. Things were much easier for me then overall because I was seeing my father less often since I would have to fly to see him. His plane was broken down so I had to fly commercial and it was expensive back then. My mother was a rock for me and she held me up when I was down, she let me ramble as I was wont to do at times and she sometimes did things for me which make me wonder now if she was trying to make up for my father's horrible behavior.
A few years later, we moved back to Texas and once again I went through the stress of changing schools and friends mid-way through the year. By this time I was a pro at making new friends and no where near as shy as I had been. I was a "skater chick" and I had asymmetrical hair and I wore ridiculously baggy clothing. Let's call this my controlled rebel phase shall we? The super small town we moved to was a host of modern cowboys and farmers and southern small town girls. It was culture shock for me because I had become a city girl. We were also living with my eldest sister (my mother's daughter) and thus, sharing her family's space. It was hard. Once again, I was treated very unkindly by a lot of people. The school housed Junior High and High School. I think that graduating class had about 10 - 15 people in it total and
the whole school was host to fewer students than I graduated with at the high school I ended up at. There was one teacher that was awesome and made me feel very welcome and several students there with whom I'm still friends. My mom and I lived in that tiny town for about 8 months before ending up in Austin.
Meanwhile, my father was still in Colorado. With the cow. I saw him a couple of times after moving to Austin. I was a teenager at this point, a sophomore in High School. I went the summer I was 15 to see my father in Colorado. Things were weird and he seemed different. He had suffered a stroke a couple years earlier and he seemed smaller and less himself. I don't think his size had actually changed, he was just... diminished somehow. The stroke had affected his left side and he still wasn't able to smile properly but he seemed to have the rest of his functionality back and he was seemingly just fine. While I was there he suffered from massive headaches, migraines. He tried to pretend nothing was wrong, even while allowing the cow to fawn all over him. I asked him to go to the doctor but he refused to go while I was there. It was during this trip I became most worried about him because he was unable to fix something as simple as my bicycle. This was the man who could fix everything.
One day he wanted me to take a walk with him. He knew that I had been upset with him for a long time and suddenly he wanted me to tell him about it. He said I should tell him anything I wanted. I was confused but I told him to a degree that I was angry with him because he had been so mean. I didn't go into great detail but he apologized and told me that he was sorry for ever hurting me. I found this to be a very unusual transaction. My father rarely thought of others and never acknowledged he was wrong about anything. I went home feeling odd. That was the last time I would ever see him.
It was a little bit after I had returned home to Austin that we got a call from my father. He had been to the doctor and they had found a handful of tumors wrapped around the stem of his brain. They gave him 6 months to live but they were going to do surgery. The surgery seemed successful and the tumors were determined to be "benign". I was struggling to deal with this illness from over a thousand miles away. My father went 8 months before the tumors returned. This time I was called several days
after my father had gone into the hospital thanks to the cow. She was so amazingly selfish she didn't let anyone know. And certainly not in time to allow anyone to come visit. We didn't know it was so incredibly serious that time. She didn't tell us. So I stayed where I was, dealing with the knowledge that my dad was in the hospital and his cancer was back again. She called Wednesday. On Monday I was sitting talking with a friend about my dad's situation. I actually said "I wish he would just die so he won't have to suffer any more." Two hours later I was called out of class. My father had passed away around the time I was saying that statement to my friend. The weight of that has never left me. I felt guilty and horrible and unloving for years because of that. I was angry at the cow because I had asked to speak to my dad the last time I had called and she wouldn't let me speak with him. I had to tell him I loved him through
her. I will
never forgive her for that. She married someone else 6 months later. I won't forgive her for that either.
During his funeral, I was unable to view the body. I couldn't even get half way across the room. I took one look at him from my vantage point and he didn't
look my father. He looked fake and like a weird rubbery doll. I immediately turned on my heels and left the room. I didn't return. My step cow was wearing a yellow dress! It was so disrespectful and horrifying to me. I asked her why and she said she was celebrating him. More like she was celebrating the stuff he left to her and that she could now whore herself to someone else for a comfortable living. If you detect a note of detest here; you wouldn't be wrong. After his funeral, I was sitting to dinner with my mom in a nearby restaurant. I turned to her and said "I wonder what my dad is doing right now". I realized what I was saying and lost it. My mom, as usual was there for me. I'm pretty sure it was "Oh honey" that she said before enveloping me in a hug. A hug I desperately needed.
He died a little under a month before my 16th birthday. I went into a downward spiral after that. I was a complete bitch to everyone I knew. My boyfriend at the time ended up cheating on me. His support was positively amazing. Read that with dripping sarcasm will you. I asked my mother to put me into therapy, I knew I was not myself. Before his death I was a bubbly, non-stop talkative teen girl who hung with the artistic crowd but still got along with all types of people. After his death, I was fairly quiet for a long time, and calculating and just mean. Eventually I came out of it, but I never returned to my former bubbly self. Don't get me wrong, I can still talk the hind leg off a goat, but I'm not like I was at 16.
He is missed. I still detest a lot of the things he did and said but it doesn't mean I stopped loving him or wishing he was still around. If it hadn't been for my mother and her strength throughout my life, I'm quite sure I would have folded. I credit her for being the strong person I have, in turn, become. I credit my father for some of my talents and the fact that these talents have provided a steady income for a long time. To some degree, I can thank my father for my strong will, because if he hadn't pushed me as he did sometimes, I might not have learned to bounce back and deal with the unexpected or unpleasant so well.
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