“Say something, I’m giving up on you
I’ll be the one, if you want me to
Anywhere I would’ve followed you
Say something, I’m giving up on you

And I am feeling so small
It was over my head
I know nothing at all

And I will stumble and fall
I’m still learning to love
Just starting to crawl

Say something, I’m giving up on you
I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you
Anywhere I would’ve followed you
Say something, I’m giving up on you

And I will swallow my pride
You’re the one that I love
And I’m saying goodbye”

– lyrics from the song “Say Something” by A Great Big World

I saw my dad for the first time as I sat across the booth from him at an Italian restaurant post therapy session.  I saw him for the coward he is.  I saw him as a man who is terrified of feeling.  How could I expect my feelings to be validated by this man when he isn’t even willing to validate his own?  I saw a man who walks hunched over and crooked because he holds so much pain inside.  I saw a man who uses humor to avoid looking at truth.  I saw a man who hides behind blanket spiritual statements like “it’s all just an illusion” and “we are all love” to avoid confronting any darkness in himself or others.  A man who wants to skip to the end of the spiritual journey and claim the truths of those who have walked through fire rather than feeling the flames himself.  I saw my dad and I wanted to cry.  I wanted to cry for him.  I wanted to help him, to save him somehow.  I wanted him to step up to the plate for me, for my mom, for my sister, for his grandson, for himself.  I wanted him to embrace truth but he won’t cross the briars and thorns it would take to get there and experience the kind of spiritual bliss he devours books about.

He sat next to me in the therapy session, a session that was supposed to be about our relationship but, as usual, it was about my mom.  He had a notepad and I glanced over and saw, written in his own handwriting these words: “what has [my wife] done to deserve this?”

And there it is, in a nutshell.  He’s never been on my team.  He claims to not take sides but his jersey has always sported my mother’s name.  “Be the bigger person,” he loves to say to me.  But what does the bigger person do when someone is constantly trying to hurt her?  She doesn’t say, “Here let me step closer so you can throw another punch.”  No.  She walks away.  That is the bigger person.

I once told my dad that my mom was incapable of love to which he agreed.  “Well she doesn’t love herself so she can’t love anyone else.”  So at dinner that night I asked him a point blank honest question.  “Why are you with someone who doesn’t love you?”  “Well, She loves me!” he barked angrily.  Yes, I suppose she does love him just like he would claim to love me.  He looked me in the eyes and told me that he would never abandon me.  That he wouldn’t be one of the enabling fathers that got pulled down the chasm with his wife when she was no longer part of my life.  And yet, I haven’t heard from him again.  The final betrayal.  He pretended to play for my team and even gave me hope that he would.  But there he is, getting ready to go up to bat for my mom.  It’s her side he is on.  Always. Her side as he sat silently when she told me I would never get married.  Her side when he listened to her tell me I wasn’t socially ok.  Her side when I plugged my ears to keep her words for getting in. He sat silently while she shattered my soul into a million pieces.  Why should I expect anything different now?

“It’s all just an illusion,” he loves to say.  Yes, dad, it is.  Our family as perfect, that’s an illusion.  That there was no abuse, that’s an illusion.  That you love me in the true definition of love, that’s an illusion.  That you would ever take my side against her’s, most definitely an illusion.