Catherine
Sometimes I would sneak off just for a drive or a long walk alone and think of my father. I only had a few memories of him that lingered but they were mine and I held them dear.
I guess I held a huge grudge toward my mother for fighting him so much when all he wanted was to be a father to me. He may have traveled often for his job, but when he was home he’d always tried to see me. He’d call, but she wouldn’t answer; he’d write but she’d never let me read his letters. Eventually he realized he should just save them and give them to me directly whenever he got home.
Most of our time together was simply going out to dinner or even just for ice cream. What I loved most about my father were the talks we would have. He loved me; he just picked the wrong woman to start a family with. She was conniving and deceitful, always using me against him.
When he got sick I felt like a part of me faded with him. It was then she’d allow me to see him. Not because she felt bad, or even wanted me to see him as often as I could until the inevitable. It was just her cruel way of reminding both him and me that our life would go on without him, just as it had before. She liked mentioning things that she planned to do with me, places she wanted to take me, knowing that he’d never be able to share those experiences with me.
Like I’ve said, my mother was heartless because in the end she never did even one of those things with me. She’d hang them as bait, taunting him with the idea of it all, yet she knew all along it was nothing more than talk.
I hated her for that. Hated her for making my dad feel even the slightest amount of guilt. There he was dying, attempting to hold on to every little memory he could and she was filling his mind with such hateful things.
I know if he were here, he would have taken me to every single place she’d mentioned. Disneyland, Sea World, even the Grand Canyon, just to name a few.
Before he got sick we used to talk about when I got old enough we would travel and he’d show me all the places he was able to see during his road trips. My father may not have been rich or had the most luxurious job, but he did what he could. He worked for a trucking company and sometimes he’d be gone for weeks at a time. But it was a steady job, which was more than I could say for my mother. He provided for me the best he could. I honestly think my mother was jealous of our closeness. He didn’t want a relationship with her so she felt that he shouldn’t have a relationship with me.
Ridiculous, I know.
During his travel though he’d started collecting small trinkets during his road trips, one for each state he’d visit each time he visited it. He always brought them back and it made me feel wanted, because that meant even though he was away, he still thought of me.
Hell, I was in the same small home as my mother, saw her every day, and on most days I thought she forgot I even existed.
Life is cruel and at times I felt terrible for asking God why he’d taken my father instead of my mother.
Awful, right?
Cancer sucks and I would never wish that on anyone. So maybe she’d fall asleep and pass peacefully instead and no one would get cancer. There…that was better.
After my dad passed I felt lost. I’d sit in my room for hours, sifting through all the letters, postcards, and trinkets he’d given me over the first twelve years of my life. It was a way for me to reconnect to him, feel as if he was still here with me, making me smile and laugh.
My dad was a clown, always looking for the humor in everything. He was happy.
I came home from school one day to find all those things I’d treasured gone. After searching everywhere, I found them. Or what was left of them.
There was a fresh burnt spot in the grass out back and small remnants of the things that had fully burned were peeking out beneath the blackened ashes.
I remember sitting down next to that spot, staring ahead thinking, he’s gone, everything, all I had to remember him by is gone. It broke my heart. Tears rolled along my cheeks and my chest ached so fierce I felt as if no matter how many deeps breaths I took it was just never enough.
Then like a crazy person I grabbed the nearest twig and began digging through the coals, looking for anything. Searching for even the smallest piece of something that might be left.
I was covered in soot, coughing from the dust I created, but I didn’t care.
In the end I found three remaining items.
A stone rock engraved with my name on it…Blake. Our name.
Next I found a necklace, I think it had been made of some type of stainless steel, with a pendant shaped like Tennessee on it. Though there were some superficial remnants of the fire along the metal, it still survived.
Finally I found an old coin, one that my father had told me was given to him by his father. It was from the year he was born and he shared the words he’d said to him that day.
This was the year my life changed. This was the year I truly became a man, a father. You, Blake, are the best thing I have ever done. I love you, son.
It was that coin alone that made me break. I fell apart, lying on the ground holding those three items so tightly in my hand they felt embedded in my skin but I didn’t care. I’d never let them go. I’d never give her the chance to destroy them ever again.
They were always with me.
Always in my purse was a trinket box I bought with the money I saved out of the couch cushions, dropped by the various men my mother would have in and out. I’ll admit I’d stolen money from her purse too. Had I not done that there would be times I would have survived only on water and stale cereal. Most days she was actually delusional enough to believe she had been the one who went grocery shopping.
She never once hit me, but she hurt me in other ways that were just as bad. She took so much from me, things I will never get back.
I was only a way for her to get more money from the State and more services for free. I was her meal ticket. Then I was Carl’s too.
At one point I actually thought her getting married would be a good thing. Maybe she’d settle down, be a real wife and mother, and things would change.
I was so wrong.
She just became more focused on him and less focused on me, if that was even possible.