It was my family, or at least the desired family of my childhood self. I never knew that family; even the idea of it is laughable.
I stood shoulder to shoulder with my mom and my kid sister this past weekend as we sorted through 30 plus years of memories, stashed away in cardboard, sealed, often with reason, beneath crunchy packing tape. We laughed over faulty junior high wardrobe choices, oohed and ahhed over tiny baby shoes, and squealed like the children who wore said outfits when we were outnumbered by burrowing mice and wicked spiders.
My entire life, from birth to present day, unraveled on a cold, plastic card table. I thumbed over a tiny bundle of my silky blonde locks, remnants of my first hair cut (and second and third and, okay Mom, it's now clear you need an intervention) and smiled at newspaper clippings announcing my perfect attendance. I sneakily tossed warning letters sent from overbearing high school English teachers about how my choice of friends was preventing me from living up to my full potential, laughing at the realization that said letter could no longer land me grounded on a Friday night.
Unpacking those letters, reliving my childhood, that was heavy. Almost every last memory involved my family, and that family looked nothing like that folded drawing begged it to be.
My father abandoned his family. He abandoned me. In his death, I chose to ignore that and only remember the very best parts of him. This weekend screamed at me to remember the whole him. Because I am him. I am the very best of him on occasion, but I realized as I poured over letters and gobbled up journal entries, I am mostly the very worst. And that's okay.
The last conversation I had with my father was the weekend of Cora's baby shower. My sisters and my step mom were busy trying (and failing) to mimic Michelle Kwan's moves out on the ice rink, while my father hung back with the daughter whose stomach was preventing her from even seeing her toes, much less attempting a toe pick. In between his promises to buy his first grandbaby a pony, or five, we had the most honest conversation of our tumultuous relationship. I am grateful everyday for the words he said that day.
"I'm going to do it differently this time."
He was talking about righting wrongs by being present in Cora's life. I knew he meant it. His words were not the hollow promises I had grown to expect. I sensed remorse and sorrow. And I forgave him then. For all of it. Even though he never asked for my forgiveness.
That lesson then was an important one. He was a flawed man. He was selfish and narcissistic. He was a terrible father who could not align his deep love for his family with his actions. Yet I loved him with a fierceness that could not be faked, and I would have gone on loving him, even if he had never changed a thing. It's that natural, honest, innocent love that, try as you might, you can't turn off.
And so, during that last conversation, when he recognized a life full of parenting missteps and vowed not to repeat them on the bouncing baby growing strong as she stretched my belly wide, I believed him.
As humans, we are a mess of very good and very rough. We are constantly fumbling and course correcting and failing endlessly. We glimpse beauty and toughness and kindness and dishonesty all at once, every time we glance in the mirror; we are a mix of amazing and imperfect crammed into one.
I am all the worst of my father. Some days. I am also all the best of him. But when I am his bad bits that have morphed and become my bad bits, I just have to shake myself and remember, "I'm going to do it differently this time."
There is beauty in forgiveness. There is freedom in recognizing that a person is imperfect.
As I parent my two bright-eyed babies, daughters who have crayon scribbled beliefs of what their perfect family looks like, I owe so much of how I raise them to my father. He taught me to be okay with seeing the very worst in someone, in myself, and loving them anyway. He taught me, in a very honest way, how not to parent.
In 30 years, when my daughters unpack their boxes full of memories, the hope is they will not be unpacking years of baggage, too. But if they do, I hope they know that for as many messes as we make, as many messes as we are, second chances exist.
Since my father is not here for his second chance, I honor him by doing it differently this time.
