[NOTE: Written in two parts on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, posted as dated.]
I spent my Christmas Eve morning catching up on DiaryLand (something I always put off, as my browser's favourite time to crash is while I do that). I read SquirrelX and mulled over some realisations I have had of late.
Before I get too deeply into that: the daddy update. He's fine. *beams* He had surgery and is recovering nicely. Fluid had been building up on (in?) his lungs and heart because it couldn't escape via the, uh, normal route. (For the curious, I'm both wary of discussing my father's urinary function and I don't know the specifics firsthand, so please forgive anything I don't make clear. It's because I'm confused about it myself.) His heart is now humming along nicely. His doctors even told him he has a very healthy heart; the kidney stone just temporarily disrupted it. Now he's getting better and should even be home for Christmas.
I don't know exactly how to word Squirrel's situation, but it reminds me of my father and his wife. I have decided that "Mrs. Dad" is a satisfactory name for his wife, replacing a very time-worn and abused "his woman" as her title in my mind. I had never even laid eyes on her before that day at the hospital (and we hadn't been formally introduced until Christmas Day). She just -- mooned over him, kinda. She's obviously head over heels for my daddy, and I feel sure that if he had been feeling better, I could have read his love for her in his eyes too.
What's this have to do with Squirrel? I was reading her latest entry and feeling ashamed. Until pretty damn recently, I've been just like Jessica and Patsy. I've held a grudge against my father because he left my mom, my brothers, and me.
I've come to see that if he'd stayed, I would have hated him even more. Maybe it's just the insight that comes with living away from parents, but the more I look at the past, the more I realise that it had been a long time since my parents had a happy marriage. When I was very small, they were absolute lovebirds -- not so much as I got older. If he had stayed, he would have resented my mother for keeping him there, and maybe us kids for pressing him to remain in a dead union. We would have watched our parents get more and more fed up with each other until we grew weary of the bare idea of marriage, and wanted little more than to get away from them both for good.
I don't think I could abide that. My mom and my dad are great people. They both have flaws, as any human does, but they love me deeply and I cherish them both, even if they aren't together. Shoot, I'm gonna cry here.
I still need to write my daddy a letter. I have some apoloogising to do.
...later...
I need to write some stuff while it's still in my head.
My brothers and I went out to dad's for Christmas morning. He gave us each a gift and we gave him stuff. The boys went together on a lovely poster (which they framed), a motivational-looking thing that read "Father and Son" across the bottom. My gift to him sucked -- I gave him old-fashioned lemon drops, because when I was little, he always kept a jar of lemon drops in his office and I could have one if I was good and didn't mess up his business stuff. Now there's new-style lemon drops, which have smooth outsides and taste more sweet, but I don't like those. When I see the old-style lemon drops, like my Daddy had -- rough exteriors, sour and sweet at the same time inside -- I think of my daddy. I gave him some in a Christmas-themes bowl with a lid, to which I attached a gaudy red bow to make up for the gift costing me fifty cents. He seemed to like it though, saying it was neat how it came in its own container and smiling when I explained how the lemon drops made me think of him.
For those keeping tally, TJ got a Bop-It (a weird electronic toy -- Googling would probably call up a better description than I could write), Squirt got an Ace reference book with all sorts of handyman information, and I got a Chicken Soup for the Soul book (1oth edition, I think it is).
After gifts, I asked Daddy if he was up for a game of checkers, and he was! So we played. My daddy is very good at checkers, always looking for openings and jumping me rotten. (Er. That sounded so very wrong. Um.) Mrs. Dad's daughter was there, and a young fellow who was either the daughter's beau or hubby -- I didn't inquire which. My stepsister (well, she is, though it's strange to think of someone with a good couple years on me in sibling terminology) joked that if Daddy lost, he could blame it on the fact he's recovering.
I beat Daddy, by the way. I had five kings and no unkinged pieces left when I jumped his last two kings in one move. I felt all cool. I realised as we played that the story I tell, how Daddy always beats me at checkers, is not what I need to protect. The part that needs cherishing is that we play checkers at all, and that we enjoy that time together.
TJ asked Daddy about his middle name and if it was passed down the family, which led to a discussion of our genealogy. Dad got out a pictoral family tree -- it had us in there! The nook was compiled in 1987, so it was a very old picture. I was little, ack. I got to see a picture of my great-grandfather at his chair in the State senate, which was awesome. I had known he'd held that post, but somehow it never seemed real when it was only words on a page. The picture and expression on his face made it real for me.
Mrs. Dad (I love that name, eee!) invited us back for the afternoon (we couldn't stay because our maternal grandfather was coming to eat Christmas dinner with us at noon) and said we needed to come over more. (When I arrived, we all exchanged proper introductions, so now I've formally "met" Mrs. Dad. Hurray!). I agreed.
After my brothers had gone out the door, anxious to get to lunch and talk to Grandpa, I lingered a moment. I had already asked Daddy for a hug and gotten one, but I had more I had to do. I told him, "I have something to tell you" in a low voice. He leaned closer as I told him earnestly, "I love you forever. You know that?" His voice went all husky and we hugged. He told me to call -- I had already explained how I hadn't called him back this summer, because I was busy with summer classes and it clean slipped my mind -- and -- he loves me.
It was then, feeling his arms around me and his voice choked up, that I realised he has been hungry for me this whole time, just like I've been hungry for him. We both want the other to know we love them, and now we know. It's a very good feeling. I have hope for a future relationship with my father that I'm not sure I've ever had before.
That's it. I gotta spend time with grandpa too while he's here. More eventually.