Earth Experiences #14: My Dad

The Clash said it best: Should I stay or should I go?

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My biological dad is dying in South Carolina.

I found out from my niece, Amber, who is the only daughter of my late sister, Carrie.

My dad and I have had very little contact throughout my life. The last time I saw him was in 2019 when he drove through Indiana on his way to visit one of his brothers in Ohio.

Carrie invited me to dinner. I wouldn’t have been invited, otherwise.

The Cheesecake Factory in Indianapolis, August 2019

Carrie was much more forgiving of my absent dad than I was, so she chose to maintain a relationship with him. The only things I knew about him in my adult life were via her.

Before that dinner, it had been at least a decade since I’d seen him. That’s a pretty good measure of how often I’ve seen him in my 54 years: Every decade or so.

My kids don’t know him. He never took an interest in them, either.

When I was young, I craved him like an addict. I thought having a dad would make our lives easier, would make my life complete. But he didn’t really want to be a dad, and although I begged every time I saw him, he didn’t stay. Couldn’t stay.

He never saw me play volleyball or basketball or softball.

He never heard me sing.

By the time I became a mother myself, I was angry. I looked at baby Sam’s sleeping, cherubic face, and I could not, in my wildest imaginings, fathom the choice to leave.

How could a parent abandon their children? How could a father simply walk away?

And Dad also broke my beloved Mom’s heart into a million pieces. An unforgivable sin.

As a young mother, I wrote him a letter telling him how angry and disappointed I was in him. Apparently, he’s carried that letter in his wallet throughout his life. His current girlfriend told me so at our last dinner.

It’s the reason she doesn’t like me. It’s the only story about me she knows.

There is a Dad-sized hole in my heart that will never fully heal, but he is virtually a stranger to me. I would know him if I saw him on the street, but I’m not sure he would recognize me—this face that so strongly resembles his own, our eyes that are the same shade of blue.

So this has been my adult conundrum: What do I do at the end of his life?

When I am ready, when I know whether or not I will make the trip to South Carolina, when I can express myself with some sense of reason and grace, I’ll write more. But for now, in the midst of all my unknowns, all I can say is that my biological dad is dying in South Carolina.

And I don’t yet know what to do.