Author: Athena

I went out of town for a few days, but before I left, I got in another tiff with my father. He was walking around the house taking inventory of what he thought might belong to him. He still held a great deal of anger inside him, mostly over the story he made up about my husband coming back to the condo to haunt him so-to-speak. As my father marched around the condo taking note of the furnishings and the kitchen appliances, I could feel my own anger escalating. Is this what we have amounted to? I asked myself sadly, holding intense disappointment within me. I spent so much energy over the last year trying to build a life and family for my father in this city, and now he is counting inventory of the furnishings in the condo to make sure no one steals what belongs to him… at least that is how I interpreted his behavior at that time. So my anger escalated and I held it at bay. Then my father opened his mouth: “Who’s fridge is this???!  This is yours, isn’t it! You’re going to take it with you, right?!” he shouted out with authority. Not only did his tone of voice insult me, but his demands did too. Here I was running around trying get myself ready for my trip, finish my work, AND look for an apartment, and my fathers only concern was whether or not the fridge was mine, and if I was going to take it.

So I lost it with him yet again. I was tempted to tell him that the fridge was in fact, mine, as a way to passively aggressively get revenge on him. But it wasn’t mine. It came with the condo so it was in fact, HIS. I told him it was his, and I yelled at him for being so concerned with the petty details when here I was trying to find a place to live. One thing led to another and he ended up rambling with authority in his voice, about what was right and what was wrong. I was so full of anger that I walked away from him, went into the bedroom and pounded on the bed in one of my biggest emotional release rituals.

Eventually I left the house, suitcase in tow, and headed for the mountains to spend a fun weekend alone with my husband. But every so often during the weekend, I did wonder how my father was doing. I would usually check in on him when I go away, but he made it so very clear to me over the last few months that he could take care of himself. Heck, he even had enough strength to bash my husband over the head 4 times and give him 4 bruises that I was fine knowing he had his own strength to take care of himself.

Being without my father was peaceful, fun, and spacious. I realized even more that weekend that moving out and starting a new life with my husband was the right thing to do. Thankfully that weekend, a landlord called me and gave the good news that I was approved for an apartment. I was so grateful.

When I got back, I was a bit nervous at how I was going to find my father, and the condo. I walked in the door and greeted him. The place was a mess, and my father seemed contemplative and sad.  He greeted me back but it was nothing to write home about. I realized at that moment that he owned his own emotions, and I am not responsible for his happiness. I knew on the surface that this was true, but somewhere deep inside, as many children are, I also knew that I was codependent on his happiness. And the truth is, he will never be happy. Sure he has his moments of joy, but he carries around dread and suffering. He’s made this choice and doesn’t realize that is is a choice. At that moment, I cut a cord with him – the cord that made me codependent on him.

It’s been 24 hours since I’ve been back, and I barely said 3 words to him. I worked in my bedroom and stayed clear of him when possible. He came in my room to complain about something trivial, and again, I saw his pain, I saw his suffering and dread, but I didn’t own it. It was his. I must’ve healed that part of myself to no longer be triggered by his drama.

I am starting to feel compassion for him yet again. I can sit here in stillness as I watch him react to life. Part of me still feels bad, but what counts is that I am getting less and less triggered, and feeling less and less responsible for his happiness. And in turn, it seems that he is also feeling less and less compelled to blame me for his misery.

Things needed to happen as they did, in the sequence and magnitude that it did in order for stillness to arrive.

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but I am conscious of being an instrument of peace, so that my transition into my new life will be easy, simple and even fun.

 

I am continuing to look for ways to bypass my ever-so-judgemental ego in order to see the lessons I need to learn from my experiences with my father. Without bypassing my ego, I get stuck in anger, rage, resentment and sadness. Those four emotions only tell me that I am stuck in an expectation that never happened. The expectation I hold is that of having a father who emotionally supported me, who was extremely grounded, who was a natural leader, and who was completely happy with HIS own life so that he could help support me in finding happiness in MY own life.

When I get stuck holding on to that expectation, I don’t move forward. But I really want to move forward. Everyday, I gauge my emotions when I think of my father. Sometimes I feel compassionate, yet other times (especially right now), I am still resentful.

One of the most helpful tools I’ve used was Ho’oponopono, the Hawaiian art of forgiving. The premise is to ask the Divine for forgiveness, and surrender. Almost immediately after doing this, I always feel a shift.

This morning, in an effort to help out a friend understand the premise of Ho’oponopono, I did Ho’oponopono on my father as an example. But the spiritual benefit I received in turn, was astounding.

In a nutshell, this is my perspective on the events leading to my current situation with my father: I moved him 3000 miles away to a different country so he could be close to my husband and I, I got him a green card, turned my own life and routine around to accommodate him, cooked him all his meals and took him to the doctors, sacrificed my freedom and privacy with husband to take care of him, and then my father goes crazy on me, says I’m a bad daughter and blames his misery on me.

So in keeping that in mind, this is me talking to the universe:

I am sorry that you needed to use my father to project exactly what is already inside me so that I could recognize this pain and heal it within myself.

Please forgive me for not realizing that these events are part of the divine plan to show that I am already whole – please forgive me for hating my father and for not realizing that my fathers behavior is just your way of showing what I need to heal within me.

Thank you for this gift of showing me my deep seeded wounds that I would not have been able to see them unless it was shown to me in my fathers behavior.

I love you for being absolutely perfect -This perfect situation is allowing me to heal parts of myself I would never have recognized any other way.

March 28th was the initiation of my freedom.  My father and husband were alone in the condo while I was at work. My husband was on his laptop in the kitchen doing his work, and my father comes into the kitchen and decided to create drama. He would usually stare at my husband across the counter with an angry, vengeful look on his face, or he would shoot out insulting comments to him – and in response, my husband would usually either ignore him or put his headphones on. Occasionally, he has lashed back at him with similar rude comments, but realized that yelling back really hasn’t done anything but expend his energy.

But March 28th was different. I suppose my husband ran out of patience. And I don’t blame him. I would have ran out of patience as well if I was constantly interrogated by an old man with whom I had turned my whole life around to take care of, succumed to his pleas of sickness and weakness when it was only a tactic to gain attention, cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day for him, and drive him to and from the doctor whenever he had an appointment, not to mention doing all his laundry, fixing and maintaining his computer, and supporting him with whatever it was that he needed or asked for.

So on March 28th, my father did what he had been doing many times before already – interrogated my husband with questions and vengeful stares. My father paces the living room a bit, mad-dogging my husband like he is a marching soldier on enemy territory, then he looked over my husbands shoulder as he was at his computer and demanded that he tell him what he was looking at. Oh and to make matters worse, he threw in a few “you are nothing, why don’t you get a job” remarks in his mix of “I want to create drama” bullshit.  And my husband pushed him away from his computer and makes a few insulting remarks back to him.

I know both men, and my husband would NOT have started a fight. My father has this awesome track record of being a serious asshole to everyone that he has ever lived with. So I really don’t put it passed him to have been the one that instigated this fight.  I really have no idea what happened after my husband pushed my father away other than my father running to his room to call the police.  A cop finally arrives, and my father tells his story in his own skewed way. He claims that he is at war with my husband. He claims that my husband hates him. He explains that my husband pushed him and how he fears his life, and then he rambles on about World War II and how the Japanese invaded his country and how he needs to be a warrior and fight for his country. I was on the phone as he explained all of this to the cop, and the cop asks me if my father has dementia. I tell the cop that he was never diagnosed with it so I am not sure. The cop suggests that I get him checked as he is showing signs of dementia and his mental state doesn’t seem very credible. He goes on to tell my husband that he won’t be in trouble for pushing an elderly man, but not to exert physical force of any kind no matter how gentle it is, because the law protects the elderly. So my husband is relieved, and my father is still angry. The cop leaves. Minutes later, my father is sitting on the couch and starts to choke. My husband is concerned that something might actually be wrong with my father and he runs to give him water. My father takes the water, drinks it then spits it on my husband. My husband who at this point had opened his heart up to him, was surprised with the behavior and acted on defense and slapped him across the face. My father, now in more rage than ever, takes my iPad, throws it at him, then grabs the TV remote which was sitting on the table and starts bashing him on the head with it. My husband, remembering what the cop said, didn’t defend himself. He allowed my father to create bruises on his head, as he dialed the cops number and asked him to come back. The same cop shows up. My husband is livid. My father is afraid. My husband wants to press charges against my father. I am now on the phone with him and I encourage him not to. I tell him that OUR MONEY will be bailing him out if he does. The cop also agrees NOT to press charges as he is unsure of how my fathers health is. My husband agrees not to press charges. Cop leaves. Of course my father doesn’t stop there. He then starts prancing around the condo claiming that he won the war against my husband, yelling racist comments to my husband about his ethnicity. My husband is tired of this. He knows he can’t touch him although every cell in his body wanted to retaliate. Again, I really don’t blame him. So what does he do? He goes to my fathers room as he is yelling his racists comments, and pees on his bed. Yes I know. To some, it’s hilarious. To others, it’s disgusting. Nonetheless, I really do believe my father deserved it. In many ways, I even think my father deserved to go to jail. No one has ever showed my father that what he has been doing all his life to make up for whatever void he is feeling in his own life, is INEFFECTIVE. My husband almost gave him this gift of getting in trouble with the law, but the cop and I stopped him.

So now, we are moving out. Whenever I think back to this story, I start to hate my father. I am embarrassed of him and I question what my mother ever saw in him. I REALLY want to love my father again as I really loved him when he first moved in with us. And I would seriously question my own actions and attitude if it wasn’t for all the memories I hold of my father being this exact same way with others…. my mother, my mother’s sister, his brother-in-law, his own sister, EVERY roommate that has ever lived with him, every caregiver that was ever assigned to take care of him – all gone. He pushed them all away with similar events. My husband and I are the only ones who haven’t walked away from him which is why I believe the scenario went as far as getting the law enforcement involved.

So anyway, we found another place to live. My husband is staying at another house until we can move to our new place. I am still staying with my father. My father still gives me a hard time, day after day, night after night. He has escalated his level of paranoia claiming that my husband is going to hurt him. He wanted to change the locks until I sent the locksmith away. He unplugged every phone in the house and hid it under the dog’s bed in his room. When I found the phones under his dog’s bed, he claimed that the dog stole the phones and he told me to scold the dog.

I am looking forward to moving out. This is a blessing in disguise. This is my chance to leave him. He wants me to leave him. I heard him talking to his sister who ALSO when through similar traumas with him when she used to live with him. She told him that he is giving his daughter (me) a hard time and how could he be looked after if he is pushing me away? His response was that “the Lord will take care of me” and when I really think about it, he’s absolutely right about that. I don’t know which Lord he worships for being the angry, bitter man that he has been all his life, but I am the LAST STANDING HUMAN BEING on the face of this earth that would ever want to take care of him, and he is pushing me away. And for that, I am actually glad. He was NEVER going to give me the life that I wanted. I want a life with my husband where I could raise a family, and spend time with him without worrying about my father feeling left out.

What my father never understood was that he was a third party coming into a marriage between myself and my husband. Although he would never admit it, I have witnessed his jealousy and anger whenever I wanted to spend time with my husband without him. And what I wished he would’ve done was understand that he was not part of my marriage. But I don’t think he ever did.

But now it’s all over. My husband and I are going to have our own lives again. And hopefully I can start to love my father again once I separate from him. This is what he wants, or so he claims, but this is DEFINITELY what I want.

Welcome to my life FREEDOM.

So again, the adventures continue.

This morning, everything seemed fine. I cooked lunch for my father, then went to work. I got home only to see that he hadn’t eaten my lunch. I made him chicken breasts but I cut each breast in half so it cooked more efficiently. My dad told me tonight that he doesn’t like the chicken cut in half because he thinks I am eating the “good pieces” and that I am leaving the “leftover small pieces” for him. Oh boy….  No matter how I explained what my intent was in cutting the chicken, I couldn’t get through to him. He insisted that I was feeding him left over old pieces of chicken. Of course, what went through my mind was “Why do I even bother with you? I slave away to try to make you happy, but you always have something to nit pick on.” I suggested that he throw the pieces of chicken away if he wasn’t going to eat it. He said no. He said he will eat it eventually. Whatever. I don’t believe him. He has a history of throwing away good food to prove his power. I don’t know why I still get worked up over it.

I guess I want him to be “normal” but he’s not. I guess I’m still trying to change him when it is clear that he will never change.

He said tonight that he was surprised at the way I treat him. He says he’s an old man and what will people think if they knew how I treated him? He says he is always being reprimanded by me. He says I always yell at him. I said he is always angry. He said he is never angry. This was clearly a case of “he said, she said.” But as I thought about it, I see the patterns… when my mother was alive, he was the same. She tried to please him and he wouldn’t budge. He nitpicked on small things ALL THE TIME and my mother hid her feelings well.  She acted like the “good wife” and kept quiet all these years. I remember one time when I was a teenager, my father lashed out at my mother about something. Somehow I got involved in the argument as well. I remember feeling hurt about something my father said, and I went right up to him, my face only a few inches from his face. I was steaming with anger and so was he. Then he took his fist and punched me in the face. I got angrier (of course, duh) but I didn’t budge. I didn’t hit him back. I just continued to stare at him in anger. Then I said “Do it again”. And so he did! He punched me again! And then I said “Do it again” and of course, he punched me yet again, and again and again. I remember my face burning. But the physical pain was the last thing on my mind. I guess I wanted him to do something extreme in order to see just how ridiculous he was being. But he wasn’t going to even going to think about taking responsibility for his actions. At some point, my mom in tears just pulled me away and we went out of the room. I remember sitting on the couch with her in the dark. And I asked her “Do you love him?” and her answer was “I don’t know”. I know that that really meant “no”.  I said ” Why don’t you leave him?” And she said: “I don’t know”.  I knew deep in my heart that she didn’t love him. I knew deep in my heart that she wanted to leave him, but she didn’t know how to. In fact, she died about 10 years after that incident. I know it in my heart that she died in order to leave him. Society and cultural expectations have trapped her to her marriage to him, but dying would mean she would be free of him.

Funny that as I’m thinking of this, I am seeing both sides of my parents. My mother on one hand stopped loving him long before I grew up. This is energy that I have felt for a long time about her. On the other hand, my father has this really warped perception that they had a wonderful marriage. When my mother died, my father cried in mourning, saying how he looked forward to spending retirement life with her. He said they had plans to go on vacation. When I heard that, I was extremely confused. “What was he thinking?!” I said as I remembered all the times that my mother would snub him, bash him, and hold in anger over things he would say or do.

What I am starting to realize is that my father really does have a narrow minded view of life. I don’t mean this in a bad way. I just mean this in a very objective, almost pityful way. Everything he’s said to me over the last year indicates to me that he lives in an illusion.

When he was living in Canada, my husband and I would go to his house and see how filthy the house was, and how miserable he was. Together, we both decided to ask him if he wanted to live with us in the US. He gladly accepted. We sold his house, moved him down here with us in hopes of a better life. But then reality struck half way through the year. He started acting out in the same way he used to with my mother, and then with his sister whom he had a falling out with, and then every single friend, caregiver and roommate that has ever wanted to help him out. He drove them all away. I even remember that he went on a cruise with a couple – some family friends who had known both my parents for years. After the cruise was over, he never heard from them again.  He told me that they never included him when they wanted to go out and eat. He said he was left alone a lot. What I gathered from that is that he was too needy and he pushed them away.

I think of all that only to realize that I am going through the same thing. He is being way too needy and I feel like my energy is being drained, and so I retreat. And that is when he gets upset. This is the pattern that everyone who has ever lived with him, would go through.

So, my dad’s communication skills suck the bag. He does all these hurtful things like throwing away food, yelling at me, calling my husband names, etc. but what I think he really wants is to be part of a family. He wants to eat with us, he wants to be included when we go out. But I have not wanted to go out with him because he’s so crabby and moody and also very insulting, and I don’t want my energy drained so I don’t invite him anywhere. I am not sure where the happy medium is.

Sometimes I just want to give up on him. I have suffered through so much pain just dealing with his insults that I want out. But then there is this other part of me that really feels compassion for him sometimes, and all I wish is for him to have peace with himself. Ultimately, I know that no one gives a shit about him. He has pushed every living being away from him. I guess I feel honored with the duty of loving him through better and worse! And so far there has been more worse than better!  I guess I want to stay with him to show that not everyone leaves him.

If I leave him too (which on many occasions, I have considered doing), then I am leaving part of myself that needs love and forgiveness. Once I am no longer triggered by him, that will be the time that I am ready to leave him. Is this my innate duty? Who the hell knows…..

 

 

And the saga continues…  just when I thought things were leveling off to what seemed like a livable situation between the father and the husband, another time bomb explodes.

I had been doing a lot around the house to compensate for all the things my husband won’t do anymore due to the “war” between him and my father.  I cook, get groceries, clean, AND work my full time job which requires traveling on occasion. My father nor husband really never noticed the amount of extra work I had been doing as a result of their childish war with each other, but that’s another blog post. But today something different happened. I offered to drive my dad to the store to get him more water, and he suggested that he go with my husband to get water instead. He said the water was heavy and that as a woman, I shouldn’t be doing this job. Then he said he wanted to reconcile with my husband so I wouldn’t be doing both his and my own chores. Funny that he didn’t notice how much I had been doing until I was about to do something that he could relate to in his time, as something that a woman shouldn’t be doing. I felt touched about that.

Then we got into a deeper discussion around reconciliation. In his angry tone, he demanded that I call my husband in the room so I could mediate their reconciliation, but I knew deep in my heart that neither of them were in the right frame of mind for any attempt to a truce. My father held deep anger in his face, and my husband yelled comments from the other room. Both of them were children of the same age, competing for power. But both of them were powerless nonetheless, and neither of them realized it.

My father’s chest started to hurt. He sprayed some nitrogliscerin in his mouth and sat down. Then he ordered me out of his room. I said “What about the water?” and he pushed me out of his room demanding that he would carry the water home himself.

A few minutes later, he came out of his room again with his shoes and coat on. I approached him and asked him again “What about the water?” And he yelled from the top of his lungs: “I AM MAD!” then he pushed me out of the way with so much force that he almost fell over.

I let him go. I have no idea where he is going, but it’s cold out and the sun is setting. Somehow, I feel cradled by the universe. I know everything is going to be ok. I’m a little frustrated with how messy things have gotten, but I know this is the path that we have all chosen. Sometimes I wish my husband was a little more understanding of him because between the two of them, I find that he has more tools to work with. But they both carry the boyish energy of trying to gain power over one another.

My father is a man who is set in his ways and will possibly never change. He lives with a perception that we are still in World War II. I wish there was something I could do to help him find peace. Sometimes I question my own reactions towards him. Perhaps I am no better than my husband in that, I need to find more understanding and compassion for him as well since I do have the tools to work with, and he doesn’t.

What I need to do is forgive myself for anything that I’m unconsciously blaming myself for, and to realize that the Divine only creates perfect experiences for us, and this is just another perfect experience in which I can gain wisdom. I also forgive my father, for he is only trying his best to live in a changing world that thinks very differently from him.  I just hope I have enough time to help him find peace. And I hope he finds an opening in his heart to start loosening some of his deep deep anguish and resentment.

When he left the house just now after pushing me away, the dog (his dog) ran after him. I ran after the dog, and when we both caught up to my father, my father said to me: “You are not my daughter” in the angriest of tones. Somehow, that didn’t hurt me as much as that would normally have hurt. I guess because I know that I still am, and I am holding on to the desire to find peace for him more than I want peace for myself.

I sobbed when I got back to the house – but it was a different kind of sob. It was almost a sadness sob, a cry for him because he himself won’t cry.

 

I am so desperately trying to find peace with my father that it’s burning me out. What am I doing wrong? Perhaps I’m trying too hard. Maybe my desperation is just agitating things. Whatever it is, I just want the pain to stop. I am now clearly seeing how my father is a projection of myself. In my father, I am starting to feel the energy within myself that is weak, wants to beat myself up, and completely criticizes me. I want it all to stop. But I really don’t know how. No matter what I do, my father will never be happy. Why can’t I accept that? Perhaps because I am not accepting my own lack of happiness? Why does the universe give such abstract lessons? I want it spelled out for me. I thought I was doing really well by recognizing my father as a gift, by creating humor out of the things he does to gain back power, but that is not enough because I really don’t feel like I’ve moved forward.

So many books, CDs, and spiritual teachers suggest that we understand and have compassion for what our parents have gone through. My friend Neil also reminds me that without my father, I would not be alive. But what does that mean? Am I obligated to suffer over his unhappiness forever? Because that doesn’t really seem worth my birth.

I have never felt so confused in my entire life. I feel trapped and worn out, sad, frustrated and most of all, I feel like a failure. I had the expectation that I would turn my father’s life around and give him the best years of his elderly life. Now what seems to be happening is that I seem to be making life miserable for himself and me.

I know I feel responsible for his happiness. I can feel that I do. A few weeks ago, I realized that a core issue of mine was that I needed to support him in order to win his love. I came to the conclusion that I didn’t need his love if I found the love within me. I thought I let go of him. But I guess I haven’t because I am sad that we are not getting along.

I just want to fix things. I want to have a happy life. With or without him, I want to be happy. But I feel stuck with him. He’s not like a spouse or a boyfriend that I can just leave.

A book I read suggests that, in moments of resistance, to ask oneself: “What if this was all ok?” Well, lets see….. what IF my current relationship with my father was all ok? What would that look like? Well… if it was ok, I would not be triggered. I would be neutral and happy regardless of how he behaved. Would I cater to his beck and call? Probably not, because I wouldn’t be around to hear him complain and demand me of things.

What I need to do is just get the hell out of my shit. I am NOT responsible for his happiness. If I don’t take care of myself first, I can’t take care of anyone else.

I don’t even know how the hell to start taking care of myself. The only thing I know is how to read other peoples desires and try to meet them as much as possible so I will be liked. I am not sure how to change around that pattern.

IF this situation was all ok, I would feel my fear and be ok with it. I would feel my pain and be ok with it. I would feel my frustration and be ok with it. Life works in cycles: winter, spring, summer, and fall.  People tend to resist winter. I resisted winter all my life until I learned how to use the snow to have fun. Hm…. maybe this time can be used in the same way.

 

 

 

Today, while I was out, my father snapped yet again. As my husband was working on his laptop in the kitchen, my father walked in the room and told him to get a job. Naturally, my husband reacted and told him that it was none of his business what he was doing. My father then became this 6 year old “wannabe” bully and started singing insulting remarks to him, and laughing as if trying to ridicule him. Of course, my husband continued to be triggered with anger.

When I heard this, I was floored. I mean, none of it surprised me, but I guess I had still expected that my father would be more mature than this. Not sure what his motive was other than to provoke pain in someone else in order to gain back his power.  I can see that he is feeling pretty powerless, otherwise he wouldn’t resort to such childish motives to gain power back. Everyday is a new adventure with him. And each day, I accept him as he is more and more.

Here is how I see him. He’s a cute, tiny 82 year old man.  A significant part of him has not grown up yet. This part of him probably remains a little boy because he hasn’t been taken care of the way a little boy should be. So he waits it out, hoping an instant parent will show up to care for him the way his real parents didn’t. The other part of him has grown up. But he just didn’t grow up. He grew up resentfully and cautiously.  He kept his heart closed in order to protect himself, and he carried the story that he is unworthy and doesn’t deserve to be taken care of, with him to his old age.

But the little boy inside him is still waiting to be cared for, which is the reason for his childish outbursts.  This child in him is also the reason for his flexibility to forgive. For this, i have to commend him. He may be a grump most of the time, but his ability to let things go is astounding. Of course he doesn’t let go of everything, but he does learn to move forward, almost by living the moment… when one minute he will be yelling at me, and the next minute, I will hug him and he will stop yelling to hug me back and give and receive love. Just like a child. They will cry when a toy is taken away, only to convert that sadness into a smile, the minute they receive a new toy to play with.

Perhaps my dad is not as complicated as I might think he is at times. He just wants to be loved in ways that he can recognize the love. That’s all.

 

Yesterday, my father snapped. As I was washing dishes in the kitchen, my husband and I were joking around with each other. To hear him over the running water, he spoke loudly. My father out of the blue yelled: don’t shout at her!!!! To which I said “he’s not shouting!” omg. Naturally of course, my husband reacted and told him not to interfere in our relationship. My father stormed away like a little boy and hours later, informed me that he can’t live with my husband anymore and that we must move out or he says my husband must step down from the throne because there can only be one king. What a piece of work he is!! I told him no one is leaving. He said he will then leave and move back with “his people” in Canada. I told him he has no people. And really, he doesn’t. He’s driven away EVERY SINGLE PERSON who has even remotely cared about him. I didn’t think he would follow that pattern with me as well, but he has. He is a walking self-sabatoging element in life that I have the privilege of dealing with. I would really like to do ho’oponopono on him and really heal that part of me that IS him. And I will. Dr Hu Len, here I come.

… my elderly father….

Let me give you a bit of a background… my father is 82 years old, and as many other elderly folks are described, he’s a bit of a stubborn man. Ok forget a bit, he is a VERY STUBBORN MAN. He was born and raised in the Philippines, and from his stories, it sounds like he didn’t have a very enjoyable childhood.  He had an older brother and a sister whom he claims is adopted, but when I look at her features, they are strikingly similiar to my father’s features. So I’m not sure if he’s telling the truth about that or not.

Anyway, my father wasn’t exactly the most loved kid in the family. The parents loved his brother, and seemed to have given him more support than my father ever had. My father was always buried in a book and longed to go to engineering school, but the parents only had enough funds to send one child to college, so they sent his brother, who eventually knocked up his cousin (I know, eww), dropped out of school, and got married. My father wasn’t even given the opportunity, yet his brother threw it all away.

Growing up, my father eventually found a way to travel to Canada, get a job and live a descent life away from his disfunctional family.  He met my mom. They were married and had a kid: me. My father wasn’t always the most pleasant guy to be around when I was growing up. He was fun and hilarious when him and I joked around – we punched each other with paper bags over our hands, he played with my toys with me, chased me around the house, and was an all-loving man. But he had another side to him… he had a jealous, insecure, incomplete side to him that always reared its ugly head from time to time.

He was jealous of my mom’s sister. My mom and her sister were very close, and my dad didn’t like that because it took his wife away from him. It also took his daughter away from him – I loved being with just the girls: my mom and aunt, and my dad said to me one day when I was 5 years old: “I don’t like your auntie.”  I was confused, but way too innocent to comprehend it fully so I let it go.

My father has a very passive aggressive, narrow minded view of the world, and this view didn’t help to get along with me, and my mother. He is quiet, introverted, but sometimes ridiculously funny. Sometimes he acted like an adorable 2 year old boy. Other times, he was like a ticking time bomb in a war zone.

Fast forward a bunch of years, and my mother passed away in 1997. In cleaning up her belongings and going through all her paperwork, my father was in shock, disbelief and confusion. He didn’t know what he would do without her, yet in my gut, I made the assumption that he had pushed her away. He wasn’t easy to get along with during the time that we were sorting through my mom’s belongings. He would yell, get angry out of the blue, demand irrational things of me, and I would often get fed up to the point where I would look up at the sky and ask my mother why she left me with him. It was a difficult few weeks, but after everything was sorted out, life got back to normal, and I found my new habit of calling my father every single night to make sure he was ok. And he always was.

Now fast forward to today – he had since moved in with me and my husband and the question that I used to ask my mom in the sky – it prevailed once again, but this time I know the answer. Why did you leave me with him? I ask. And the answer is: So I have the space to work on the parts of me I have always ignored. That is, the part of me that is my father.

So here lies a journey ahead – lots of turmoil inside me around finding peace with my father. I have never faced my issues with him the way I am forced to today. Often times, I blame him, other times I am feeling compassionate, but rarely am I in a place where I can truly say I am at peace with him. That is my goal though. I want to find peace with the part of me that IS my father.

I am hoping that blogging about him will help sort out my thoughts.  Comments are welcome.