Quick backstory: He died Nov. 14.
I keep trying to feel something – anything – and yet my mind tends to wander to my ex-wife for that.
I very vaguely remember times where we’d have fun, as with me riding on his shoulders, but the final year Oma came for Christmas, all of that was gone.
A friend and I had split a beer several months back (I think we were 11) when my parents went out for the night and got us pizza.
As 11-year-olds are, we stupidly did not dispose of the evidence. My parents being reasonable people, the punishment was “don’t ever do this again.”
So it is against this backdrop that I’m sitting in my room, and my dad bursts in, furious. In my face like he’d never been before, and I was frozen in shock and confusion. I’d not done anything.
Over the course of the next half hour, the picture becomes clear: Oma had opened a beer thinking it was a V8.
What I never got was an apology. He knew damn fucking well that he’d falsely accused me and scared me, but apologizing was apparently too much.
There were nearly 35 years for that apology. It just didn’t happen.
NGL, dad probably totaly forgot about the event. If it’s one of many “blow ups” they seems to gloss it all over and it fades away.
My own dad separated himself from his family, ran off to California to “find himself” in the early 90’s and died there. Alone. I went out in 2018 to see him one last time and spent 4 days cleaning his filty cottage while he sat in front of his computer and played games. We went out to dinner one of the days I was there and I realized that I no longer knew the man sitting across the table from me. Odd feeling that.
All the love I’d had just had faded away over the years - even before he left, he was notorious for promising to spend time with me and then not showing up. It was always some excuse that he couldn’t make it… 9 times out of 10 it was him just forgetting. It was depressing to be on the end of that indifference, to say the least.
Said my goodbyes and knew that it was the last time I would see him.
Tried several months later to help him get admitted to the VA for medical care and even offered to go out and pick him up and bring him back east to a VA hospital nearby and he made all sorts of excuses. Oh well, I tried.
I miss the man I knew when I was little before my folks got divorced and my mom took me out west… THAT man was long gone by the time I went to live with him for the last three years I was in High School.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that it is okay to be ambivalent or have no feelings whatsoever about your parents after they die. It happens to a lot of people.
Of all my relatives now dead, the ones I cry over mostly are my grandparents. They were way cool and I spent time with them - into my 50’s - so I got to know them as adults, as peers and equals, which is an amazing experience.
Hey, I’m estranged from my dad, and I just wanted to let you know that your feelings, whatever they are, are totally valid.
You don’t have to feel anything, don’t force yourself into it. Let yourself be true to how you really feel, if anything.
I’d be glad if my dad died.
I’m not happy he’s dead (though he was in pretty bad shape), but I’m now three weeks out and can allow for questioning.
I’d be glad if my dad died.
People seem to struggle to understand this, from my experience. I never personally felt this way about my dad, but I fully understand why my mom does.
Who is Oma
My grandmother. It’s a European term. My ex is an Oma.
So grandma opened a beer you left in the fridge and (presumably) had a sip and that set your father off?
No, I had no interaction with said beer.
So it wasn’t even your beer, it was just one left in the fridge?
Yeah, she just opened it and realized it wasn’t a V8, so she put it back in the fridge.
So she didn’t even drink it?
His reaction doesn’t sound “reasonable” at all. Sounds like maybe something else triggered him that day and he took it out on you.
I’m sorry, are you saying a single incident that didn’t have an apology was unforgivable or that it represented a common trait of your dad?
As someone who stopped all contact with my dad at one point (while still a child, but continuing as an adult), I can say that there were a few specific memorable issues, but that they were by no means isolated.
The impression I get from reading seems to be that it’s an anecdote indicative of a larger, more regular series of incidents.
It is not unique; it is nonetheless the reason I can’t figure out what the fuck is going on.
It represented a breach of prior trust.
I think it might be worthwhile to reflect on the fact that your parents were not just parents, but also human beings themselves. We tend to hold our parents to standards we would never hold our friends. Imagine one of your friends wronged you in such a way; would you hold this bitterness the same? Or would you extend them the benefit of the doubt and understand that in that moment they were not their best, and it probably wasn’t about you at all?
If one of my friends pulled what my dad did, we would no longer be friends. Simple as that.
Look, if you want to throw the door open and shout at me for shit I didn’t do, I should at least be getting laid (my ex may have been a bit violent and delusional).
Then you know where your standards are and apply them evenly, that’s perfectly valid. Cheers. ✌
If it were a systemic issue and they had massive control over my life, I would wish them only the worst. Speaking from experience, of course.
After moving out, once they were out of my life for the most part, that dulled into indifference.
So, just the one incident?
I am not going to go into further issues here.
