What sticks...

It wasn’t until I had children of my own that I begun reflecting about my dad leaving.  When they reached the tender ages of five and three-and-a-half, I started to wonder about what exactly happened to me as a child that fateful day.  Maybe it was the fact that my daughter had some striking physical and personality similarities to me, especially when she wore her hair in pigtails.  Maybe it was the way she and her brother loved their daddy.  They would rush to greet him in the evening when he got home from work with squeals of laughter and delight yelling, “Daddy, Daddy… Daaaaddyyyyy!”  If his schedule was a little off – perhaps from a business trip - they would question me relentlessly about where he was and when he would be home.  As I considered my past in contrast with my children’s lives I decided to call my mom to ask her what happened to me. 

After catching up with the current events of our lives, I dropped the bomb on my mom and asked “When dad left what did we do?  Did we cry a lot?  Did we ask you where he was… when he was coming home?”  Silence.  It was as though I was asking her the million dollar question and she was deciding if she needed to use a lifeline.  She actually said, “I don’t know.  I don’t remember… I think you were fine.”  Silence again, thick and heavy, remained on the line.        

What I do know, after the sudden disappearance of my dad from my daily life, I developed fear-induced stomach aches.  My mom could not leave the house without me.  If she did, it would trigger a severe panic attack.  I would cry, uncontrollably.  Bolts of sharp pain attacked my insides.  Desperately I’d grab onto her legs and beg her not to leave.  Questions raced in my mind; was she coming home?  Was she going to leave me too?  My determination to keep her from leaving me was as strong as the aches in my gut.  I would not let her leave me!    No one was going to leave me again.  

After the divorce, dad moved to Spokane, Washington which was about a 400-mile drive from our home.  The distance meant we didn’t get to see him often.  Usually visits consisted of a couple of weeks in the summer, some spring breaks and every other Christmas.  As an adult I was told by my sister that we talked on the phone with our dad, but I only remember one phone call to him when I was a junior in high school.

I remember the last time my dad was in our house.  It was on an afternoon that we were being picked-up for a visit.  He brought a gift - one of those dart boards with the sticky Velcro-covered balls.  I don’t remember any of the other gifts he brought.  But I will never forget this one.  It wasn’t the gift as much as it was my mother’s reaction that day.  She began screaming and crying and throwing the balls at my dad’s head -   she had just discovered the ring on his finger. 

... More to come! Excerpts taken from book I am writing:

After They Leave, Who Will Love Me?

A Memoir of struggle to find love after adoption, divorce and death