Member-only story
Happy Father’s Day to the Afterlife
My dad was never the kind of person I enjoyed calling on Father’s Day. Don’t get me wrong — he was always a good provider for me and my family. We had a place to live, transportation, food on the table, and vacations every once in a while. I was very privileged growing up, even if most of my young life was put on credit cards.
But my father was also a hard man to love. He grew up in a tough household where his behavioral problems were never really examined and he was eventually sent to military school, where he was when his mother died. As a result, he was an alcoholic and a pill-head — I remember one day in high school very vividly when he was dropping me off at work and had to take a detour to a BP to meet with a homeless man and sell him pain pills. I wanted to curl up in the seat of his truck and die.
But my father had problems. Some of them he passed onto me. For most of my life, I was so angry at him for that. For not figuring out his own issues and instead handing the intergenerational trauma he received down to me and my sisters.
Last Father’s Day was like pulling teeth for me. Any holiday in which it is a requirement that I call my dad is hard for me, because there was no one easier in the world for me to get in argument with. I honestly don’t remember if I called him last year or if my anxiety took over, which I regret…
