One thing before I start. No matter how bad things may be for you, no matter how much someone you thought loved you turns on you. No matter how alone and helpless you may feel, you have it within you to turn it around. Please believe me when I say that there is someone out there just waiting for a person like you. You just have to find the courage to knock on the door and hope that the one who answers is the one.
And if he/she isn't the one, move on and find a new door.
I wrote earlier about being the father of two girls and how I'm relieved that I don't have to worry about their choices in life that may or may be a result of my words of wisdom. I will raise my girls the best that I can and hopefully be a positive role model. But I'm lucky that I don't have to ever give them the "When I was your age, I went through the same thing you're going through" speech.
My father didn't have it so lucky.
My father was 21 when he married my mother who was 19. My dad was in the service and stationed in San Diego. Things were good for a while and then she became pregnant. This would have been wonderful news had it not been for the fact that she was susposed to be on birth control but had not been taking the pills. My father wigged out a bit but got it together enough to try to make things work.
FYI - For the longest time, and I guess even now I have it in my head that I was responsible for the impending divorce. It's just hard for me not to think it even though I guess I know it's silly.
Anyway, they tried to keep things together and a little more then a year later my brother was born.
I'm not clear on what happened after that. I know he left her and moved to DC to be closer to his mother and my brother and I stayed with our mother.
My dad kinda' lost it. He sank into a severe depression. I know he went through things so bad that I don't even want to talk about them. But somehow he came out the other side of all his darkness and when he did he knew that he had to have his sons with him. So, to make a short story shorter, he went back to the west coast, grabbed my brother and I and headed back to DC. And he raised us by himself for many years until he finally remarried.
But he has this guilt thing going on that while I guess I understand, I just can't accept. Look, the bottom line is that no matter what kind of parent you are, your children will go through hard times, they will screw up, they will get hurt. No matter what you do you can't protect us from the world or ourselves. And he's right, he has done some things that I don't think were the best of choices, but I have almost always agreed with the reasons behind his actions. So he beats himself up but he doesn't take any credit for the most important thing he's ever done.
You need to remember that when he took us from our mother it was the early 70's. Single parents were almost unheard of and a single father, well there may have been like 5 of those in the entire country. But he did it and he did a great job. And guess what, it turns out that my mother turned into a complete diaster and I have no doubt that I would be beyond hope right now if I had been left in her care.
If you want to blame yourself for something then make sure that it's something you had control of in the first place.
And pops, as I go through this crap and I start to drown in all of it, I think about you and how you somehow got all 3 of us through it when you knew you had to. You made a choice that was in no way what was best for you when you chose to raise your two boys and as I look at my girls, your beautiful granddaughters, I know that I'm on the right path.
I love you dad.
Night guys
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