When Someone Dies and You Still Have Ambivalence



My father died in late July.
He'd been in a coma for several months, and had indicated beforehand he was more than ready to go.
He had some good sides- he was a decorated WWII hero and he had a great sense of humor.
But as a husband and father, he sucked.
He was mean to my mother and inappropriate with his kids. He said and did a myriad of horrible things to us all, including knocking up his hideous co-worker when he was 58 and she was 27, with a husband and kid of her own.
She hated my sister and me, and vice versa.
The whore wanted my dad to annul his 35-year marriage to my Mom so they could get married in the Catholic church. That's the kind of gall she had.
Later she was arrested for pulling a knife on my father during a brawl. She was that type.
Big Sis and I opted out of attending the funeral, lest it turned into an episode of The Jerry Springer Show.
I hadn't seen my dad in 15 years or so, when he dropped by my house unexpectedly and we had a three hour talk that really cleared the air about everything I held against him. I forgave him and hugged him goodbye, knowing that would likely be the last time I'd see him. And it was true.
My friend Fran from the blog "There Must be Bread" listed to the right, said something very true when I told her he'd died. She said it was harder to mourn the parents we didn't love than the ones we did.
She was so right.
None of the appropriate, expected feelings of loss were present for me.
When my beloved mom died three years ago, my gut was empty and I mourned for years--in fact I'm still mourning for her.
With Dad, not so much. It's hard to feel the loss of a person who abandoned me back in the 70's, when he married that mean, knocked-up whore.
His recent loss is like a scab on my elbow that keeps getting bumped. It's healing slowly but it keeps getting bumped.
I was worried that he'd bother my mom once he went to heaven.
Big Sis calmed my worries when she suggested that heaven was likely not his next destination.
Naturally, dad's estate excluded us entirely.
The only thing he left me was a new Xanax prescription I plan to use during the long transcontinental flight to Paris next month.
So basically, he left me the means to take a nice nap.
Thanks, dad.