When I fist started doing this little blogging thing it was a place for me to bitch and moan about things that bugged me in pop culture, politics,everyday life. A sight into my mind and thinking that you couldn't always share around the dinner table or with people. Not everyone cares about what I thought would happen if Superman was real or what I thought of the latest Hip album.
I accepted this and that is how this blog came to be. It was a creative, though at most times poorly written, diatribe that I kept for me. Never naming anyone out right, using Nicknames for those close to me, never really sharing personal info really, keeping things as anonymous as possible. Once I had somebody tell me i never write anything too personal, so I did for that person,but what follows is something I didn't think I would be sharing but, it is something I need an outlet for it. read at own risk. comment if you want to.Feel free to share it with others...
A small back story, that you might need is that my parents divorced when I was 5. My mother met a great guy not long after and they have been together for 28 years. That guy is my dad and the guy who raised me...this is a open letter to the other guy...
Dear Rob,
First off you will notice that the letter does not say "Dear Dad", with good reason. You gave up the right to that term years ago, and I truly feel no need to grace you with it now. Not deserved or earned.
Now others reading this letter may say that may sounded harsh and uncalled for, and maybe even rude, but I don't really care and I think I can safely say you would probably agree with me, even though you might not say it out loud. But like I said, Don't care, this letter is not about what anyone thinks..not even you..it's about me for a change and what I need to do.
When I got the call a couple of weeks ago that you were sick and in the hospital and were asking for me a lot of things crossed my mind. I had often wondered in earlier years what I would do when I got that inevitable call. Would I go..not go. Do I play the good person card and just go? You have to understand...it has really come to the point that I don't even really know you. Oh sure ,we share some DNA, and I have inherited your shaky hands, but really that's it, in essence you are a distant memory from what seems like another persons life.
The memories that I do have though are few and far between, I remember riding up to the Lake on the back of the Gold Wing the day you and Mom told me, your 5 year old son, that you"were going away" for awhile, I remember having to sit at the dinner table for hours on end till I would finish the liver that I hated. Thank God for Grandma Bundy, Gram, to save me by helping feed it to the dog or getting it off my plate. Seems silly now but as a 4 year old that was a horrible ordeal.I remember the odd visit at a scatter shot of apartments around town, to years of no contact(I am fully aware this was a two way street, but you had to want to walk down that street) Or the day,recently,(with in the last couple of years) I get a call from a strange women on a Sunday morning asking if I had seen you and was tiring to get money from me to pay for a hotel room or some shit. That would be the most recent memory I guess. Even looking back on these situations now, some might seem petty or even silly but I bring it up not to throw it in your face, or make it seem like I have a grudge because you made me eat liver, but to show you that is the extent of the impact on my life you have had. I can not think of one good memory.
Now let's think about this shall we? No real good memories. And now you want me to come rushing to your bedside so you can what?, I have actually grown into a smart guy, so I can guess that it would be to 'see me' and 'apologize"for all that you did, and for not being there, blah, blah, blah,blah boo fuckin hoo. And really there is no need to apologize cause I am over it and have been for many years. It didn't help your case much either after the times you had come in drunk to my place of work and went off about how your my Dad and caused me me public embarrassment in front of my staff, well maybe in the scientific sense you could say you were my father, but my Dad was at home and would have never done that to me or my brother.
Ahh yes my Brother, Now there's a kid who is probably a better person than I am because I am sure that he will come and see you, but in case you haven`t put 2 and 2 together yet, I am not coming. And really I keep asking myself why should I´´but know this,when he does it will be out of respect for Gram, because Gram gave you another chance and let you stay at her house. But to be fair she was one of the best people I knew.
But I digress, I am not sure what else to tell you. But I hope my point got across. I know your situation and I`m sure at some point in my life I will get blasted for writing this letter from some far off relative that has no bearing on my life, but as I said at the beginning of this little diatribe I couldn't`t careless about what anyone who reads this letter thinks about me or anything I have written Rest assured though that in spite of you I had a good life, with parents who love me, friends ,family and I like to think that I have grown into a pretty decent person. So you can take that with you, Im not fucked up because you and mom got divorced`or anything, but then again I am not anything because of you. Everything I have grown into is because of the people around me in my life.
given the situation not sure how you sign this off but as you sit there waiting in a hospital bed.. waiting for your outcome to play it`s self out...your mind can be free. I hold no grudge and turn the lights on the way out.
Me
I now return you to the usual up beat nature of a newly revitalized blog that wont go months without updates. Some one pass the gin,,,i need a drink,
