Letting Go of the Resentment

My younger sister is in town and we decided to go out for dinner for her birthday Friday night. I asked my daughter if she would like to go too and we headed downtown for the restaurant. When we arrived I noticed that my step-brother and his wife and my niece were there. I hadn't realized that anyone else was going to be there. My sister arrived shortly after, as well as my dad. I sat next to my daughter and my brother. We all started talking and my sister was filling us in on her new life in a new state where she had moved. My brother was giving my dad a hard time, joking about how he had run into him a few days earlier and my dad was talking about my sister and had gotten all teary-eyed because he missed her. We were all carrying on several different conversations at the table and my brother and my dad continued to talk and started talking about cars. When they were finished I leaned over to my brother and I told him that I admired him for being able to let go of all of the resentment he had for my dad. He and my dad never had a very good relationship when we were younger. I admired that because I still hold onto so much. He, my other brother and I were all very close in age, within 1 year of each other and had all gone through much of the same thing in our home life. My brother said to me that he had realized that maybe he wasn't such a great kid and that it must have been hard as a parent (my dad) to have to put up with it. I honestly couldn't believe he had said that. I never particularly thought that my brother was a bad kid. However, if he was at peace with what he had been through then that was his way of healing. I told him that I was still "working it out".

I mentioned in my last post that one of my most happiest moments in my life was when I had emancipated myself. I thought about that very subject and realized I was mistaken. There were two people involved in my emancipation, me and my dad.

My dad, who adopted me and my step-mom where alcoholics. My dad worked a full-time job to provide for us five kids. There were three of us older kids, me and my brother and my step-brother, and two younger kids, brother and sister that belonged to both my dad and my step-mom. The younger kids were just babies, my brother is 8 years younger than me and my sister is 10 years younger than me. My dad and step-mom would spend most of their free time at the bar while we were left at home expected to take care of the house and the babies. The house was always filthy and piled with junk everywhere. We had very little food in the house. Usually, we had a couple of cans of commodity meat that we had gotten from the pantry and a few other odds and ends like powdered milk, powdered eggs and commodity cheese. My dad worked on cars and had a garage. He liked to collect a lot of things in the yard including cars, car parts, and a lot of other junk. It was embarrassing. My mom and dad would keep us older kids busy telling us to pick up the yard, go cut wood, clean up the house, etc. We weren't allowed to go anywhere. We basically just moved piles of junk, pulled nails out of wood, hauled wood, worked on cars, took care of our little brother and sister, and that's about it. My mom and dad would buy things for the little ones while we went without. Once, I needed a winter coat because I didn't have one and I told my mom and she wouldn't buy me one. They thought it was more important to spend hours and all their money at the bar. I never told anyone this before, but once my dad came home from the bar and was hugging me and tried to kiss me. And not in the dad-daughter kind of way. Nothing happened, but it was traumatic nonetheless. My dad was also very physical. I had already been through being physically abused as much as one could be physically abused when I had lived with my mom and her boyfriend in Detroit. My dad wasn't nearly as bad, but he wouldn't think twice to haul off and knock you down on your ass and spank you. Most of the abuse in this environment was mental. We were just little kids.... we just wanted to be able to do kid things. It would have been a little more acceptable, but we were also seeing the special treatment that our younger siblings were receiving. We longed for that attention, that love.

When I was 17, I started babysitting the neighbor's daughters. I became very close to the family and would be invited over on occasion to watch movies or have dinner. They knew I did not have a good healthy, happy home-life. They encouraged me to become a legal adult and emancipate myself. They offered me to live with them.

A few of my friends from school came to my house one day when my mom and dad were gone. We quickly loaded up my friend's truck with all my belongings and I left my emancipation papers on the refrigerator for my dad to sign. I didn't talk to my mom or dad, and had very little contact with my siblings for almost 2 years after that day.

Until just the other night when I talked to my brother, I had never before thought about how my dad must have felt when he found the emancipation papers on the fridge. I know my dad loves me. I don't know why we had to go through what we went through, maybe it doesn't matter anymore. I am a strong person having done and seen what I have. One of the happiest days in my life was probably one of the saddest days for my dad.

When my daughter and I got up to leave from dinner I walked over to my sister who was sitting by my dad. I gave her a hug and told her happy birthday. My dad looked at me and I looked at him and rubbed his shoulder. He looked a little sad.