dad DammitJanet Matilda came into the diningroom carrying an old game about a dragon, penguins, and eggs. "Does anyone want to play this with us?" she looked at the four of us hoping for a positive responce. We all looked at eachother, interupted from our conversations, the expressions on our faces all the same. Too exhausted to move from the table to the attic. But we did anyway. We, with children in tow, scrambled lazily up the stairs, sat around on the couches and carpets, and set up the game. Dana turned on the tv. The leafs had won! Relieved, we set up the penguins and marvelled at the age of the game. The instructions were so vague that neither of us could figure it out. Where did we start? How did we start? Was the dragons mouth opening for a reason, or just for show? So we made up our own rules and shook the mountains and dropped the eggs. Dana then noticed the old photo albums lining the bottom shelf in the corner. The really old kind, where the pages didnt come out, the covers were vinyl or fuzzy, and the stick no longer stuck. We went through them all, one at a time, the six of us squished on to a four person couch. And we laughed. And we questioned. And we figured out. And i found myself holding in my tears. My dad. There he was, strewn across all these pages. Old pages. Picture after picture, smiling, happy, with everyone around him smiling, and happy. Like they enjoyed eachothers company when they had it. Annie asked me if i ever talked to him. I told her he had died in '96 of a heart attack. She said sorry because she didn't know. But i never really told anyone. I had a new dad now, one that took care of me, one that loved me, one that didn't leave me when i was 3. My dad. I wanted to close the book. I wanted to stare at the pictures longer. I wanted to tear his face in half. I wanted to take the pictures home and put them under my pillow. I hated him. But i loved him. He was my dad. I never realized how much i looked like him. His nose, his cheeks, his chin, his hair. The only pictures i ever had were of him turned to the side, and covering his face. But here.. 10, 20, 30 pictures, facing the camera, posing, smiling, being the person i wanted him to be. My dad. I never really knew him. I wish i did. 040410 ... leni made me coffee every morning for as long as i remember smiles like the dawn is fun and free and easygoing and nothing ever bothers him played with my toes when i was little scratched my head took me to the dentist and it was always fun (the fast food afterwards) once we even snuck a movie edward scissorhands i think i hid my tears so he wouldn't think i was silly never got mad at me never said i was bad never hit me kicked me once, apparently, or so i told everyone, then i started walking home along a long country road... ! i think he probably just shook me off his leg, he's not the kicking type taught me how to shoot. protected me way too much. gave me a job. stayed with my mum even when things were _really_ hard and i switched from being terrified they'd part to wishing that they would even now, he makes me feel like i am cool, i am smart my opinion is valuable more than anyone else i think he makes a lot of people feel good about themselves maybe he spreads his inner confidence i want to be like that i wish everybody had a dad like that he's not perfect but he's really good. 060918 ... somniac last night i finally realised that every time i say "i hate my dad" what i'm really trying to tell you is "my dad hates me" 070404 ... nr i wish i had a kind, supportive, unconditionally caring one. i never knew what that was like. and now the buffer is gone. it's hard grieving for something you've lost at the same time as something you never had. and both are what you need. 210718 ... kerry i write the same things about you in my journal now as i did when i was fifteen. 210728 ... epitome of incomprehensibility That sounds tough, nr, I'm so sorry. There are things I don't like about my dad but he's been supportive recently - comforting me in my irrational fears and doing nice things for David. So I'm thankful. 210730 ... epitome of incomprehensibility That sounds tough, nr, I'm so sorry. There are things I don't like about my dad but he's been supportive recently - comforting me in my irrational fears and doing nice things for David. So I'm thankful. 210730 ... e_o_i blames the captchas why. are. things. repeating. 210730 ... nr i didn't pack a bottle of red wine well enough in my bag home, so it broke and spilled. a shampoo bottle that i DID pack well also somehow came out of the closed ziploc bag and spilled. so i spent awhile, after getting home from travelling for eight hours, cleaning everything and finding all the broken glass. then at our family thanksgiving get-together, my dad tells a couple of people, basically right after greeting me at the event, how i "stupidly packed a wine bottle in a soft suitcase" (kind of jokingly, but still). a family friend kind of said "awww" when he said "stupidly" but no one really finds it appropriate to call him out on that behaviour like my mom did. he didn't see me cleaning everything up or anything, but probably should have inferred that a spilled bottle might make things inconvenient. i replied that i'd wrapped it up in clothes, but he's right, i am just stupid. and he just kind of winked at me like we were sharing a funny joke. it's kind of surreal when you realize how badly adjusted your parents can be. 211011 ... nr he asked my cousin where her husband was, and she told him his reasonable reason why he couldn't make it, and my dad was like "tell him he's a dick!" my cousin kind of politely snickered because that's all people can do with these "jokes." he was like "let's get a move on here, people! what are we doing?" when he came in and we were all starting to pile our plates with food. i was exasperated with him and was like "oh, stop" exactly like my mom would have. he did stop, and found that funny. it's all so absurd. he's becoming more obnoxious with my mom not around. i feel like his father would have gone that same way if my grandmother hadn't been. 211011 ... nr i still weirdly think it's his way of communication regret. he'd bought the wine bottle, so maybe that was part of the issue, but the wine couldn't be enjoyed by me now that's broken. he would have wanted to see my cousin's husband, so he's "a dick" for not being there. not that these are excuses for this behaviour. but people are strange. 211011 ... nr *communicating regret. i kind of like communication regret, though. or miscommunication regret. 211011 ... nr with editor hat on *now that it's broken. oof. 211011 ... nr i was thinking that he hasn't often felt like a father. more like a semi-distant uncle, or family friend, who is around at times and can be supportive at times and frustrating at times and you just deal with him if and when he's there because he's for some reason in your life. sometimes i wonder if he'd have chosen to have children if it wasn't for my mom wanting them. 211129 ... nr we haven't talked in awhile, and when we do it's mostly just a catch-up on what's been going on. he does surprise you sometimes though, like on channukah. 211129 ... raze one of the high_school students sitting on the bench we were about to walk past was making yappy little barking noises. he saw a dog. i guess he thought he was speaking canine. he wasn't. his pronunciation was okay, but he didn't understand the mechanics of the language. my dad turned to him and gave him a deep, guttural bark. the real deal. "dude," the kid said to one of his friends. "that guy just barked at me." you're damn right he did. that's my dad. he's been howling for four times as long as you've been in the world. and you don't want to know what he just said. 220308 ... tender_square i don't know how to answer the question "how is your dad?" there's so much nuance and complexity to conditions that are changing daily. typically, i shrug and say it's hard to tell. it's a question i've been bumping up against with greater frequently this holiday season while catching up with friends. last night, kristin asked while we sipped tea standing in her galley kitchen and i answered honestly. "my mom told me a story a couple a weeks ago that i still haven't gotten all the details on—i keep forgetting to ask—where she had come home one afternoon and all of his shotguns were out of the gun safe and he was doing something with them. she said they're all secure again and that she has the key kept in a spot where he can't access it, but i don't know how it even happened in the first place. then, about a week ago, she went out with a girlfriend and my dad said he was going to have a couple of beers—even though he's not supposed to drink on his meds—and she didn't check to see how much he had purchased before leaving. when she got home at one in the morning, he was still up drinking, which isn't like him. turns out he had a whole case of twelve. he woke up the next morning drunk. and when she confronted him about it, he was incredulous and said he didn't have that much, that she must've drank some of the beers too. he's actually forgetting how much he's drinking. and it caused a level of impairment that effected him for days after, and my mom doesn't know whether this is the new normal." "that's the thing with this disease, my grandfather had it; they turn into children and they also start to lie when confronted. and maybe that's them trying to save face when they can't remember." "how scary is that, when you can't trust yourself and as by extension you can't trust others?" a silence formed pooled between us as i sipped from my mug and i gave voice to my deepest fear. "i'm worried he's going to do something to himself with one of those guns." 221223 what's it to you? who go blather from