a little history

this started out as a reply to a friend's post about her family, but i thought i'd just post it here...i kind of went on a tangent and it became unrelated to the post, but i wanted to save these words and not let them go back into the cosmic void.


my dad was raised with alcoholic parents who both died before he was 13. then he lived with an alcoholic aunt and grandfather, the latter of whom molested my dad's little sister. my dad's older brother died when he was 24 of heart disease. my dad's sister tried to fix her life - she got married and had 2 kids - but, in the end, things got to be too much for her and she killed herself. my dad got married at 17, pretty much by force because he got his gf pregnat. he was divorced by 23.

by the time i came along (when my dad was 27 and he'd been married my mom for 2 years), my dad was a well adjusted guy. he didn't want the same for me (or for his other kid that came before me - he did the best he could, but it didn't work out). my dad came from bad, bad history, but he made the decision not to be that way. i have issues because of my mom being evil to me when i was a kid, but that's just cuz she didn't want a daughter. but my dad was amazing.

my dad made me feel loved. my dad wasn't his parents. my dad taught me that liquor was something to be savored and not drunk in mass quantities everyday. my dad taught me to be tough and not to take shit from anyone. my dad stopped the cycle. my dad's one of the smartest people i know.

i don't tell him often enough, but i love him with every cell in my being. my world will stop spinning the day i lose him. but because he chose to not be his parents, i know he's going to be around for a long time and allow my future children to have him in their lives. since i was cheated out of a set of grandparents, i'm looking forward to my kids having a gaggle of them.

i know women always say that they hope to never be their mother when they have kids. i hope that, too, because i want to be my dad.