I've always referred to my biological father bitterly, but despite my resentment he is still the man that helped bring me into this world. The reason I only ever have negative things to say about him is actually because... I can't remember much else. Last night my sister Amanda told me our aunt Teari added her on facebook, but I tilted my head and admitted that I couldn't remember her, much less did I remember simple things like Dad being the middle child and having two brothers. So I have two uncles whose faces and even names are a blur of nonexistence in my memory. Astonished, Amanda pressed more and when she realized how little I could recall she concluded that I must've subconsciously blocked him out. She worries, she thinks that something very traumatic may have happened...and the idea is possible so I'm bewildered.
More importantly, I'm frustrated. Regardless of whether or not I "like" my dad, I still feel robbed of childhood memories. The divorce between my parents happened when I was eleven, and that is the beginning of my few clear memories of him. I remember how he used to pick Amanda and I up from school for a quick snack or how he'd take us to Putt-Putt Golf. After that we visited him in Hawaii twice, but during those visits I remember little things like watching movies or how he got drunk one night while we played a board game and he suddenly tried giving me advice on life and yelled at my stepmom for interjecting. I remember walking out of their little apartment and walking to the end of the hall because we weren't on the first floor. I pressed my back against the wall and sighed, and of course Amanda came running after me. Everything before this I can't recall.
I can see Mom. I can see cuddling with mom, I can see talking to Mom or bugging her after work, I can see her cooking and I can see shopping with her as a child. But I can't see Dad. I can't remember what he was like as a father. I have one fuzzy memory from Hawaii when I was just learning to ride a bike... I remember riding around the neighborhood (it was a sort of culldasack military-housing set-up) and he was watching with his buddies, unsurprisingly also sipping a beer. He laughed when I said I couldn't figure out the brakes, and I remember tears rolling down my face as he and the group laughed... then green. Lots of green, I crashed into a field. I came back whimpering and asking for a bandaid but he told me to toughen up and I never got that bandaid. Since then I've associated this memory to my complex with showing weakness or crying in front of people.
I resent him so much, but I didn't ask to forget him almost entirely. If it weren't for the fact that those trips to Hawaii were somewhat recently, I would have a hard time being able to remember him at all. It already feels like I have to squint and focus when I'm trying to think of what he looks like.
Why the bitterness? Here's what I recall: Jeffrey Thomas Sampson. A man my mother met in the Navy as a diver and who she eloped with in Hawaii. He drank a lot, was controlling and criticized my mother, didn't like seeing my mother's side, yelled a lot, had crude humor, and he looked like a mix of Cuban and Indian because of his darkly tan skin. Mustache, increasing baldness, tall, skinny despite a beer belly now and then, and when he propped his feet up I noticed they look just like mine. He walked out on my mom a lot, I faintly remember a few yelling-fights, and most of all I remember my mother's breakdown after she realized he had cheated on her. Even fainter is the memory I have of him packing his truck and driving off. After that, I was in my room a lot. Mom was always sad and distant, but I didn't understand what a broken heart meant. I found out what it looked like when I walked in on my sister helping our drunk mother into bed... she was making a lot of noise crying so I walked into her room ("....Mommy?") and saw her writhing...asking over and over why my father did this to her. My eyes went wide, and Amanda finally saw me and walked me back to my room and told me to stay.
I suppose that is why I truly despise him. I grew up as mommy's-girl, so to see that "daddy" was the reason that mommy was so sad is a simple conclusion. I'm still frustrated - I mean, most people get upset if their technology or money is stolen... but me?
I'm upset by a lack of memory.
Bye Daddy.
