I’m safe now…

My father died today. I had no relationship with him because of how he treated me growing up. He was a condescending, creepy guy. My friends were creeped out by him. My husband and kids were creeped out by him. Everyone I knew was. He was a schoolteacher and they didn’t like him either.

I guess they knew without knowing. Or maybe they did. He molested me. He was inappropriate to my friends and apparently his students. He was married so many times that I lost count. My mother was possibly his third wife. He’s been married more than ten times I believe. One woman’s daughter was so distraught over their marriage that she insisted that I be his executor and she be her mother’s. She wanted everything kept separate. I never met those people. I only know two of my step mothers. Never met anyone else. Never wanted to. And I don’t know the current one. I do feel bad for her though. I’m sure she’s upset and traumatized.

I hope he didn’t cause too much trouble in the lives of all his women. He caused enough in our family to last a lifetime. I remember he was so drunk from the night out before one afternoon, that he was still drunk after being at school all day. We were having dinner in the kitchen and milk was running down his chin. I guess I must have looked at him funny – after all, he looked ridiculous – because I thought he was going to come over the table at me. I was either 15 or 16 then. 16 I think. So it would have been my junior/senior year in high school. Overachiever that I am, I did high school in three years and then graduated from college at 20. That happens to people like me. We kill ourselves so that maybe we’ll be acceptable somehow. Anyway, it was a really awful moment. When I graduated from high school, I went looking for an apartment for my mother, brother and myself. I found two, took my mother to see them both and told her that we either moved out, or I was going to. So we moved. Just like that. And my asshole of a father followed her home from work one day to see where we were living. I remember that day vividly. I hated him. Their divorce was  final 6 months later and she only asked for $200 per month child support. She had a daughter starting college, and a son who was profoundly deaf. Right. He threatened her. He said, I will pay you more if you let me live. The judge was astonished, and asked her, are you sure? My mother said, yes, she was sure.

I guess my brother worked things out with him before he died, but it was awful knowing that he was embarrassed to have a deaf son. And he stupidly conveyed that to my brother at one point.  It was shameful. And my brother didn’t deserve that from his own father.

But that’s all done. He can’t ever hurt anyone ever again.

I’m safe now.