This is the first year in a long time that I’ve sent my dad a card for Father’s Day. We fell out in a big way about 16 years ago after a pretty rough few years for us all, when my mother walked out on him and indeed all of us, basically (though us children were grown, it still hurt). The mess she left for my father to deal with was dreadful, but he worked his socks off to put things right, pay every penny back and generally get his life to a place where he could be happy again. I’ve always felt a deep respect for that. He’s now married to a lovely lady and they are happy. I love that he is happy. My step-mum has hugged me more in the one day we’ve spent together than my own mother did all of my lifetime. I look forward to getting to know her more, and hopefully too her sons – 3 step-brothers!
A lot of stuff has happened between us, some that many might never forgive, but actually I wanted to forgive and even though I know he does not understand it all, it actually doesn’t matter now, it really doesn’t. We have made our peace. Now I find myself wanting to see him more often, wishing there was not a whole country between us (him in the north-west, me in the south-east), but we chat almost every week now. I want my children to know him and for him to know them, not just of the odd visit. We will figure this out somehow.
Now I love my dad again (not that I ever stopped, really) and can share that with him. He’s not quite the person I knew – the dad I’d laugh with at jokes only the two of us “got”, the dad I’d stay up and watch Hammer Horror films with when I was a teenager (and he would turn off the light as I was half-way up the stairs!), the dad who, when I was very young, I’d curl up beside on a Sunday afternoon in front of some old western, him falling asleep and me trying to replicate his breathing. I was his girl, you see – in spite of the stuff that went wrong. He did some pretty stupid things sometimes, but I’ve let it go and I am happier for that.
I love my Dad and am glad that my aunt and my sister brought us together again.