This is one of maybe a handful of photos I have of my biological father and I:
This morning, upon checking my blog, I received a comment that said, "Why don't you kill yourself," in response to a rant I posted yesterday about having to clean up after my family.
My father was not a good father. He was not around. He did not contribute much to my life other than confusion and fear that someday he would come and take me away. The only relationship I ever had with him is contained in box on my dresser filled cards and letters he sent me while he was in prison, full of broken promises and empty words.
The last time I spoke to him was a week before Mother's Day in 2000; my first Mother's Day as a mom. I hadn't spoken to him in nearly a year, as he had been released from prison the previous year and stopped writing again. The entire conversation was full of tears and other expressions of regret, but for once he did not make any promises to change. He didn't tell me he was going to be a better father or that he was definitely coming to Maine to reunite with me. He promised nothing. At the end of our conversation he told me he loved me more than I could imagine and then I never spoke to him again.
The following Sunday I got a call from my father's girlfriend. She was crying and before she had a chance to say a word I knew. She told me that he had shot himself in the woods near their home. All my life I never thought that I would be terribly upset about him dying, but there I was, a blubbering fool.
So, in response to that moron who wants to know why I don't just go and kill myself, the answer is that I would never do that to my children. All I lost when I lost my father was the hope that someday he might actually be a father; and that was a very hard thing to let go of. If I took myself away from my children, I can only imagine the kind of damage it would do, because they have had me - all of me - everyday of their lives. I could never hurt them like that.