Happy Father's Day

Happy father’s day.

I saw my father on Friday for the first time in 5 months. He got remarried while I was in India. He told me in an email, a casual email updating me on the facts. He was married, and her son, my new stepbrother, was in the hospital after a terrible car crash. He died a few days later.

Having not spoken to my father in months, I didn’t know how to respond to such a thing. I didn’t know how to deal with such mixed emotions from the other side of the world. And so, I didn’t. I did nothing. I cried and wrote frantically in my journal and sought comfort in the new friends I had made, but really, I just buried all of the pain that email caused me beneath the shadows of my newfound bliss.

But it stayed here waiting for me to return. All of the anger and sadness I felt sat on my doorstep, waiting to be claimed and dealt with. I am trying to deal with it. I am trying.

I called my father and we made plans for dinner. We said nothing of the 5 months of silence that past between us. We said nothing of the marriage or the death. We said nothing of any real substance.

Not that I necessarily expected us to. I think I’ve reached the point where I can accept the fact that we’ll never have a relationship based on anything real. Still, it hurts to think that I’ve been forced to settle. It hurts to think that I probably will never have the relationship I’d like to have with him. It hurts to think that he’ll always be a part of my life, but a much smaller part than I want or need. It hurts to be my father’s daughter.

On the other hand, I’m a different person now than I was when I first realized how angry I was with him. I know who I am, and if he doesn’t like that person, it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t mean anything. Not having him approve of me doesn’t mean that I don’t deserve love. It’s taken me a very long time to understand that.

And now that I do understand that, I’m okay. I’m able to talk to him, see him, have dinner with him once and a while. I’m able to let him be the small part of my life that he can be. I’m taking what I can get.

We had a nice dinner, the three of us, awkwardly dancing around any subjects that would spark discomfort. It of course, wasn’t all I would like from a dinner with my father and new stepmother, but it was a start. Maybe a type of ending as well, a peak of comfortable settling where we’ll all remain. Still, I’ll take what I can get.

Still, it was enough to allow me to call today and say happy father’s day.

Happy father’s day.