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Stephanie Tobola

Selfish Father




When I was in high school, I had an issue with my left knee and was sent to physical therapy to work on strengthening the muscles. During the initial intake the physical therapist asked if my parents had any issues their knees or joints. Somewhere in the course of that conversation my aunt said something about my mother having some kind of problem and I snapped a response that I was more like my dad.

Now, physically that may or may not be true. Looking at that moment now I can see how I was clinging to my childish notion that my dad was going to somehow swoop in and save me from the monsters that preyed on me. I was so angry with my mother's neglect and abuse that I had romanticized a man who was, in so many ways, worse than my mother.

Any of the romanticized ideas of who my dad might be I held on to were gradually eroded by repeated waves of ugly reality. My dad, like my mother, had a magnetic personality. He was an easy-going jack of all trades master of none type of guy. My dad has just enough knowledge about various topics to hold a conversation and do general trouble shooting, but he was not good at staying sober or maintaining personal relationships.

My earliest memories of my father are violent ones, but in the wake of the abuse from my mother and stepfather my brain whitewashed over the horrors of my drunken father beating my mom, chasing her with a hammer, and my mother yelling for me to call 911. The desire to be saved created a false reality where my father cared about me and was just around the corner waiting for the right moment to swoop in and save me. When the saving finally happened it was not my father who saved me.

As a teenager my interactions with my father began to highlight the ways his actions and words never really matched. On summer and Christmas visits I would listen to my dad rant about my grandmother, my mom's mom, and how it was her fault he didn't see us as much. If it weren't for my grandmother he would be around more, but she was such a bully and forced him to stay away. I would listen to my dad talk about how stupid everyone he worked with was which is why he is unable to keep a job. As he ranted his face would become increasingly redder with every beer can that filled the trash can.

The most glaring moment for me was sitting on my dad's apartment balcony and listening to him try to talk about sexual interactions he had while high on acid. At that moment I realized that at 16 I had surpassed my father in maturity levels. In my short 16 years I had learned to take responsibility for my choices and how to push through discomfort in ways that my father had been unable to in his 40 years. I remember thinking how stupid I was for wishing this man would have saved me because he himself was too busy drowning in misery of his own making.

All my dad's bluster was just that, hot meaningless air. My grandmother did have a very harsh view of my dad, and she did put up walls to keep him out, but he did beat my mother in front of his daughters. My grandmother was trying to protect her daughter and granddaughters. If my dad had really wanted to be more involved in our lives he would have been. It is as simple as that. Nothing would have stopped him from getting the help he needed for his addictions and anger, finding a lawyer who would work with him, and fighting for us. Year after year he chose to live for himself.

I did learn some valuable things from my father's selfishness. I learned what I did not want when it came to a partner. I learned what kind of a parent I did not want to become. Further, I learned that I never wanted to be the kind of person who was incapable of seeing how my choices affected not just my life, but the lives of those around me.

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