April 13th 2009 – Under These Dark Clouds
Image by Stephen Poff
I debated whether or not I should post this public tonight… I still might make it private… but right now I feel maybe I can talk candidly about something I’ve hinted at in the past.
For the past week I’ve been getting calls from that "someone" that I’ve mentioned for the past few years that has burdened my heart with their troubles. That someone is my biological father.
The short story is that over the past few years he’s been digging himself deeper and deeper in to debt and taking on risks that have made no sense to take on. I’ve tried desperately to steer him into the right directions, give him advice, money, spent time calling various agencies to help out only to have him end up homeless.
That’s right… my father is now homeless. I sent him check after check begging him to tie up his loose ends and come live with us for a short while so that I could help him get back on his feet. All the money went to bizarre ventures and to things that had nothing to do with the effort to get him on the road. Sadly he had a working motor home and a piece of land in Tennessee that would’ve been close enough for me help him out more, but he lost the motor home when they evicted him and the money that I gave him for gas/food/car repair to get up here was spent on hiring some other homeless people (he paid them in beer and cigarettes) to help him sell some stuff (I know that sounds halfway reasonable, but he wouldn’t take anything but retail price… at a yard sale… and hence sold nothing). He’s eligible for VA assistance and Social Security, he won’t apply for them. I’m not really sure what I else I can do for him.
At some point I realized that I was sinking money into a cause that was taking away from my family and not doing him any good… sad but true. Also, the more I dealt with him, the more I realized that it was a good thing he never made it here… with Zoe here, he’d be nothing but trouble… trouble that I’m not sure we could deal with.
So, I found out tonight that he spent the last 6 nights in jail (for a reckless driving ticket, he’s since been released) and that all the possesions that he had (in a trailer parked at Wal-Mart), had been towed and impounded. He’s literally living in a van down by the river… or overpass as it were.
I don’t have the words to express my anger, disapointment or frustration at his and subsequently my situation. This should be a very happy time in my life and his situation is just a dark cloud over my head. All my life I’ve lived in his shadow. And you know the saying, "The sins of the father will be visited upon the son". Well, think about that when you have a felon for a father. He cheated on my mother more than once and then spent 12 years in prison. I’ve spent my life trying to be everything he’s not… to escape the pain he’s left in his wake. And for some reason, I still feel like if something happens to him, it’ll be my fault.
His words to me in a text tonight were "Can’t hang on an longer, I’m down the tube’s sorry. I’ve lost everything and I refuse to start over."
Live with that.
I know that was way personal, but I felt like I needed to put it out there in the universe somewhere so maybe it would be a little less of a burden on my heart.
I’m gonna go hug my family.
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