It seems odd to me that when people are dying the confessions they make to their loved ones and in turn what their loved ones expose to others. Maybe people see this as a final opportunity to set secrets free and purge from their soul the last remnants of filth before carrying on to the next of “whatever may be”.
It was my initial wish that I share each and everyone of these posts with my father as a way to mark his journey onto the next life, maybe I still will, maybe only some, this one I believe I will keep for myself as I see no point in twisting the knife so to speak.
My relationship with my mom and dad has always been riddled with dysfunction and mess. I was placed into foster care before I knew most of what the world was about, I regret nothing and I am passed the point of needing apologizes for the reasons I ended up in twenty one homes before the age of maturity. I believe it has made me who I am and I am pretty okay with that. Since my last post my father was released from the Hospital and was home an entire day before the pain was so intense he was sent once again back to emergency. My mother called me to inform me of this as it was happening, I felt utterly helpless from my home over two hours away in that moment but I did my best in comforting my mother, who has been married to my father since she was eighteen and has a hard time coping. My mother went onto tell me about their life together, which was nice because I generally know or remember much about their life and my own.
It was only when my mom got to family that her voice started to quiver. She pretext ed the afterthought with “I’ve been carrying this my whole marriage”, and quite matter of factually told me that my father prior to them marrying had been suspected of sexually assaulting my then six year old cousin Ronnie. My mother said there was never any concrete proof and no charges were ever laid, however that was the main reason why I never had any extended family to speak of as they had all disowned my father. My mother went onto say that when my father was twenty years old (months before meeting my mother) his then girlfriend broke up with him and he went home and drank the entire stock of my grandfathers alcohol. My mother said he stumbled down stairs to where my aunt and her children were living and was interrupted as my mother said “making love” to my then six year old female cousin. Charges were pressed and my father was officially a pedophile.
I’m not even sure where to go from here. I am still just as much in shock as I was hearing this news two days ago. My mother swore me to secrecy, stating that there is no reason to bring up something so horrific at a time when my father is facing his last days. Even now, in this very moment my only thoughts are “this changes absolutely everything”. Like a waterfall I have so many partial memories, cloudy nightmares, and thoughts that are all now making sense. And within all of that ugliness I have only pure unabashed sadness. I have no words that can eloquently translate the feelings of shame, and anger that are inexplicably linked to my father, to growing up and living in a home with a person so broken that he often times buried his own darkness in the bottom of bottle after bottle of booze to escape his own demons. My mother finished the conversation, (as if sensing my next reaction) by stating that after that “incident” my father never again displayed those “behaviors”. I said nothing and felt the space between my mother and I grow even deeper and in that silence I filled the void with words, “how could you” “you have no idea” “it doesn’t work like that” “denial” “I hate you” “I love you” “why did you marry him” “how could you have kids with him!!” that I knew we were both thinking. 
thegoodbyestory 