My father and I grew particularly close following the death of my mother. My brother and I, not really. He lived with his wife and coming child in a beautiful sumptuous house out in the suburbs and felt obligated to at least invite me for Thanksgiving and Boxing Day and sometimes Christmas. We actually had met a few times in restaurants to talk about our family and there appeared not only amnesty between us but the possibility of friendship. My father lived in a lovely rural community and often I would stay for a weekend for a place of retreat and simply to enjoy being with him.
In 1994 my father's mother passed away. He began to drink again, unable to cope with his grief or loss. We had a huge and ugly falling out which our relationship never recovered from. This also impacted severely my relationship with my brother over whom I was already hanging the spectre of my need for an apology from him for his long term mistreatment of me.
When I changed my name this was another blow to our relationship. He declared himself my ex-father, though we still saw each other and I still stayed at his place on some weekends. I think that we both tried to maintain our relationship but it was like trying to keep a sand sculpture from collapsing while the tide was coming in.
When my father took me in when I became homeless it also ended our relationship as father and son. For the first several weeks it went fairly well, despite his tendency of yelling abuse at me in a high-pitched little old man kind of whine on some nights from behind the safety of his closed bedroom door, things he would not dare tell me to my face. I was only staying with him three to four days a week, the balance of which I spent in Vancouver with various friends. One Sunday evening as I returned to my father's following three days in Vancouver he was in the living room reading. I paused to tell him about my last three days. Grumpily he said "I want to read." I knew already that he was getting eager to see the last of me.
Eventually we could no longer tolerate each other. He became increasingly abusive and I still had no idea where I was going to go, only that I was no longer welcome. When I finally found a place to live in Vancouver we resumed contact. He guiltily gave me some money and I visited him to try to help him with his moving. He had ended up in a very risky situation and I did what I could to offer him support. Finally, we saw each other for the last time Thanksgiving Day, 2001. He shunned further contact and became ill with Alzheimer's. Then I could no longer contact him by phone. My brother and I stayed away from each other and eventually I lost his contact information. I do not believe that he had the same excuse because his wife had no difficulty contacting me a few times.
When the choice came down to two difficult options: my mental health recovery or taking care of my father in his final years I made the selfish decision. I needed to heal. In 2009 my father died. I found out in 2012. I went through a kind of gentle grieving process. Since then I have come to accept that I am entirely alone.
I have incredible freedom and I have friends. I do not have the ballast of a supportive family nor enjoy the sense of being loved unconditionally. But you know what? There is no such thing as unconditional love. It is a bogus concept and the deeply rooted guilt and obligation and fear of everything that holds a lot of families together has nothing at all to do with my idea of love. At times, especially around Christmas, life for me can get incredibly lonely. On the other hand I no longer have to suffer through holidays full of emotional blackmail, and now I can make myself freely available to others during the Christmas holidays. It usually involves work, and I get paid for it, but it's better than nothing.
This is a time of learning in the healthiest way possible to be emotionally self-sufficient while never ceasing to reach out to others in a spirit of true friendship. It is never an easy nor a perfect balance that gets established. There is something about the ongoing effort and work involved that makes me grow and become each year a little bit closer to the person that God has called me to be.
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