Patricide and Father-Echoes

My father says that I am still a child and must be treated like one. No requests made of me, you understand. Rather, I am to be told what is expected of me and I am to complete the task or attempt to live up to the expectation as well as I sincerely can. This time, it was the task bit. I do not live with my father. I support myself financially. I work a real job, now. It is hard. I earn the weekends. I deserve them. Some people do not deserve weekends. I do. And Friday night is a part of the weekend.

My paternal grandmother decided to have a very large family dinner at "The House" yesterday. I love and admire and adore and girl-crush on every atom that makes up my grandma. She is the best grandma that has ever walked the face of the earth. And not because I will inherit anything of material worth. She lights up my entire everything. And ordinarily, I would figure an integral force in an out-of-the-blue family gathering with REAL FOOD bringing us together, but this time, I was just too tired. I wasn't in the mood. I had other stuff to actually do. And a few things that I ache to happen that I try to keep my life open enough for. You know--just in case. So, I ignored all of my Gram's phone calls this week not because I didn't want to talk to her but because I knew what she wanted. I was going to have to cook 90% of the food for this whim of hers. Do you know how long it takes to do something like that? An entire day. A full twenty-four hours. And we only expected 40-50 people. It was like Thanksgiving, only larger. And I just didn't feel like it. Thanksgiving is a few weeks away anyway and I'll have to do this ALL OVER AGAIN! I just wanted to be left alone. My father wouldn't accept brushing off my grandmother.

He made me do it. No Friday night. No Saturday. Complete disregard for my actual life. When I tried to explain that this time I just COULDN'T (and I ALWAYS DO, you understand...I am ALWAYS the CAN DO DAUGHTER/GRANDDAUGTHER, though I am not the only one!!!) nothing I said reached him. He didn't see me at all. Even did that thing he is very good at. He added the guilt factor. Said that if it had been one of my friends wanting me to do something, I wouldn't hesitate. Said I was needed by my family. Said was I going to choose him or whatever else I would rather be doing. Just like he would when he and my mother realized that the two of them together was not, actually, a fantastic decision. He would say, "Me or her? She has wronged me. If you love me, you cannot love her. If you do love her, it means, then, that you do not love me as you say you do." It isn't a secret or anything. My father is a bastard. Through and through. I mean I don't want him to die tomorrow, but he is not a good man. Not a good father. Is almost completely incapable, it seems, of getting it right where any of his human relationships are concerned.

How I feel about my father scares me for a dear friend of mine. He has two daughters. Their age differential is exactly the same as mine and my sister's. He, too, didn't quite make the love thing between himself and their mother last forever. I mean as a romantic couple. And not that it was his "fault," I have no idea about those particulars, but now that I know him, I cannot really think of my father without thinking of him and his daughters.

The older girl, from what I have gleaned, is like me at that age. The younger, eerily similar to my little sister--as she was a long time ago and how she is now. The older is very agreeable. A pacifier who doesn't want to be the cause of any additional ripples. The younger is very bold and much more free. She says exactly what is on her mind. Asks for what she wants, no matter her desire. And I'm pretty sure, but perhaps I'm transferring here, that she hasn't seen all that the older girl has seen; doesn't know all the stuff the older girl knows. These parallels, I know, are not...the strongest or most unique parallels...but they do not sit easily with me.

My friend is nothing like my father. He, you know, is human, but he is not my father. I just say a little prayer for him--for all three of them--that his girls will never see him with eyes like the ones through which I see my father. If there is anything to know that is ugly about him, I don't ever want them, especially the older girl, to happen upon that knowledge. I envy his girls for what they have, I believe, in him. For a father. He seems to me this miracle, for so many reasons, in that role. I think that, perhaps, he even believes it to be the role that has been the making of him. You know, as a man. And that whatever else he does (or more specifically--gets all wrong), he will get that right. He doesn't know it, but I am his secret champion where they are concerned. I want him to be good and beautiful in their eyes for forever.

I do not want them to be afraid, suspicious, too, too cautious, or unwilling to take risks.

I do not ever want him to hurt them. Not ever. Because I am so afraid that they will not forget it. And I don't ever want them to forget the love-light that comes over his face just for them. How he loves and NURTURES them is like a secret healing for me. I could never say that out loud, you understand. No one could really understand just how thick that feeling is in me about the three of them being good together because it doesn't involve me, in any way, ONE BIT. All I know is if they ever become blind to that light on his face that they put there, it would break his heart.

More over, it would break my heart.