It has been a REALLY long time since I’ve posted anything, so I’ll start with the ‘catching up’ part….
I stopped by with the kids and visited with Dad for a while – this would have been mid September. Dad was leaving town, but he was only going to be gone for a week or so. He was also going to have a load of mulch delivered, and the boys were going to come over to help him spread it around. As an aside, the load of mulch that Dad gets is typically a medium sized dump truck load, about five yards. That works out to 135 cubic feet. The oak trees in his back yard don’t allow much to grow under them, so he mulches much of his back yard.
I periodically drove past his house, and he came back about two weeks later. No phone call. He had been there about a week, when the car-sized pile of mulch appeared in his driveway. Still no phone call. Over the next weeks, the pile of mulch shrunk as he distributed it. Still no phone call. His car left, replaced with Mom’s car. His car came back, and Mom’s stayed. Still no phone call. Thanksgiving came and went, still no call. Christmas came and went, also with no phone call. Now it’s getting close to four months since I’ve heard from him, and I’m not really expecting to. Probably not ever.
Which, honestly, is fine with me. My Wife doesn’t understand that, she thinks that I need to keep up contact with him until he tells me to stop. Unfortunately, knowing how Dad is, I think that’s just what he’s told me. If I show up, he’s nice and courteous and kind to the kids, but that’s the way he is. He’s quite like a politician in some respects. He’s pleasant and can carry on a conversation with anyone. Even people he doesn’t like would never know it. The difference between people that he likes and people that he doesn’t is quite simply if he chooses to be around them or not. I think that Dad has chosen NOT to be around me. As painful as that sounds, I think that I’ve known it for quite some time. It just took a while to sink in.
That shrinking pile of mulch is what did it. It brought to mind a similar thing quite a few years ago. We were moving, which happened quite a lot. Several friends offered to help pack and load. The ones whose help was accepted were ones that Dad liked. He even called one to remind them of their offer. The ones that Dad didn’t like (and I don’t remember the reason) were never called, even though their physical help would have been much more valuable, as they had two teenage boys who played football. Not that the situation is unusual, people make decisions about who they willingly associate with all the time. The difference is that all of them had recently been to a farewell picnic, and Dad had been in animated conversations with them. They had joked around, and an observer would have never known that there was any preference between them. That showed up when Dad could exercise some choice, and then his choices were quite clear, if unspoken. Everything just came into focus with that dwindling mulch pile. He’d rather do all the work himself that have me or my kids around. Oh well, his loss…
In another vein, the kids and I got Christmas cards from Mom. The boys got a card (combined, btw) that was innocuous. The card that she sent me was also quite bland. She told me that she was still at the beach with bronchitis, and that my childhood couldn’t have been all that bad, since I didn’t run away. I had high hopes that it would make interesting blogging fodder. My Daughter’s card was accompanied by one of Mom’s infamous ‘boxes of junk’(tm) that she’s famous for. It included an opened bag of restaurant crackers, a sheet of ‘high school musical’ stickers, and some Disney princess napkins. My Daughter didn’t want any of it. The card (which she also didn’t want) read in part ‘Someday you’ll be old enough to come see us without your parents permission – I just hope we don’t die or lose our memories first. Maybe Daddy can take you to see (grandfather), so he doesn’t spend all day at Uncle (brother)’s grave crying – poor (grandfather). ‘ and ‘Isn’t it a shame when parents destroy the dreams of their children?’
I’ve gotten several messages from Mom, but haven’t bothered to get them off my voicemail yet. I just haven’t been in the mood. Obviously, if there is anything interesting there, I’ll post it.
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