Memories With My Dad

My dad as I remember him was a hard working father.  As far as I recollect about my childhood he was the best dad a girl could ever need or wants.  He let my mom do all the disciplining.    He was there for me all the times that I needed him.  He was very athletic.  He was on a softball team and he was also a great bowler and even became a secretary for a league that he was on for many years.  My mom was on the same league and I remember so well all the times that we went with them.  I forgot now what night that they bowled.  Anyway we would have dinner and then we would all go in our blue Chevy (I think it was a Chevy) to the Bowling Alley.  My sister and I would walk around the bowling alley and then most times we ended up going to sleep on the bench as sometimes the game would last longer and later.  That was when we were younger. 

That was when Dad was on a softball team. We were in our teens then. We used to go to the games with him to watch him play.  He was very good at softball and it was fun to watch.  I remember one year dad was putting in a carport on the side of our house.  They invited all the players that were on Dad’s team over to help him lay the cement.  Oh they had plenty of food and of course Beer.  It was fun and they brought their kids over and we all played while the fathers helped put in the carport.  I often wonder where those times have gone.  Very rare do I see or hear neighbors actually helping neighbors.  Most are the kind that stick to themselves.  Well that is what I have experiencing after my kids went off to college.  They are grown now and off on their own.  They want little to do with me now.  I assure you it was not that way when they were teens and we lived in a huge neighborhood in a Florida suburb.  I loved living there. 

Back to my dad and his softball games.  One year my mom got so mad at him that she told him not to come home.  We never saw mom and dad fight and we had no idea what the fight was about.  So, he did not come home that day and that was the words that my mother ate then.  Dad was playing is softball game and he was running to a base and he was going to slide into it but then changed his mind.  Bad move on my dad’s part.  Instead of coming home he was rushed to the hospital and my cousin , who lived next door, had to make the call to my mom.  He broke one leg and sprained the other.  His right leg was in a full cast and he was laid up in bed for six weeks.  Mom never said that to him again.  Plus she had to live with him and dote on him for six weeks after that.  Be careful what you wish for……  My mom learned that right quick.

I was Daddy’s girl and I think mom had/has a problem with that.  I could tell him anything and confide in him, but not so much my mom.  She would always tell me what I should not do.  I always did something wrong in her eyes.  I do not know what it was and still is.  A few years after that, my dad was playing softball, and he had a heart attack.  It was the first one that he ever had and he was not even 40 years old yet.  They rushed him the hospital and he was in surgery and put in ICU.  So my sister and I went to the hospital to see him.  Well that was the worst experience I had, but it was not the last one that I would have in my life.  My sister left and I was there in the waiting room.  I did go in and see my father and then came back out.  Since I was the only one around, Mom started yelling at me.  Now she has done it this way almost all the time.  She will wait until no one else is around and then she proceeds to rip me to bits.  That day she had me in the waiting room of the hospital, she blamed me for my dad having a heart attack.  She told me that if I had not confided in him that none of this would have happened.

That tore me up as you can imagine.  I can still remember that time as if it were a week ago.  I was standing there in a huge waiting area and the nurse’s station was off to the left of me.  My mom was standing right in front of me and yelling those words at me. I did not say anything back to her because she would backhand me.  I had been backhanded and thrown up stairs and not believed my whole life while growing up.  I cannot say that I did not deserve them.  Ever wonder why you did some things that were totally stupid when you were a child?  I used to stick my tongue out at her when she turned around.  Man moms have 20/20 on the back of their heads and their ears, how sharp they are that they could hear a pin drop in Africa and we live in the USA.  This time was the ultimate and I did not move or say a word.  I could not believe what was happening was real.  It was like I was not there but I was there stuck in my body.  It was so surreal.

From then on I did not confide in my father, nor did I say anything about what was really going on in my life to them.  Nothing can ever take that or those words from me.  They are so ingrained in my being.  Since then my father has had many heart attacks, stents put in and experimental procedures.  His body finally gave up on May 27, 2014 when he died of a massive heart attack in the hospital.  He had just come out of dialysis and he was getting that to see if his blood would clean out.  After he come from there he started coughing and they thought it was pneumonia and they were going to admit him.  Mom wasn’t there that day.  He was gone by the time she got there.  I was not blamed for that….Thank God. 

I have a history of DVT’s and my oldest daughter and I have come to the conclusion that they are kind of hereditary.  No one else believes that especially, not their father.  My father’s mother had 7 heart attacks in a week while in the hospital before she died.  So there is something to my daughter and my hypothesis.  Dad also had vein problems in his legs for years prior to his last heart attack.  They never found out what the problem was. 

In the last few years he finally got internet and a computer.  I would send him many pictures of my gardens and of the renovations that we were doing to the house that was given to us by them.  When I called them I felt like I was under the microscope and never dared to tell them anything about my personal life. I was afraid what Mom was going to say or do to me.  I thought that mom really was the one who gave this cabin to us but found out later, that I assume now, that it was dad who really did….and that is another story to tell.

© Debra K. Allen a.k.a Lady Guinevere

I researched and wrote this article. Please do not copy and paste any part of this article, picture included for your own use. I will find you and report you for stealing.  It is my right to change any information therein at any time and/or change the location of my article.