This morning I got up at about 6:30, and I felt much better, having gotten a good night’s sleep. I knew this week would be a rough one, and it started on Sunday evening with a zoom call with my siblings. It would have been my father’s 99th birthday as he passed two years ago in November. Everyone shared stories of our parents and when it was my turn, and I decided to share something they didn’t know. When I was around 42 years old, I told Debbie that I was going to go to Columbus, OH and visit my father. I told her I was going because I wanted to have a conversation with him about our past and our relationship.
You see, my father, in his earlier years, was very abusive to me. I took many a beating from him, and I was the 3rd son. I really hadn’t spoken to my father from the age of 20 to the age of 34. I wanted nothing to do with him. The important thing was about having t this conversation with him. I did not want him to pass and have these feelings of guilt because I didn’t do it.
I will not elaborate on the conversation other than to say that it was a tough weekend for both of us as he really was still in denial about the abuse. I cited multiple incidents with clarity. I knew, however, that he heard me and probably thought about it after I had gone. I told him about Father McClory and his pedophilic ways. After many years of subtle approaches by him for me as a young child singing in the choir, the final straw was when I was 15 years old, and after getting home from wrestling practice, he was having dinner with my parents.
I went upstairs to take a shower, and while drying myself off, he came into the bathroom and, with his index finger, touched my junk and asked me if it was giving me any problems. At this point, I gave him a stern no and asked him to leave. I didn’t tell my father at the time. I just figured he wouldn’t believe me. It was 1967 before any of this came to light. I wasn’t affected psychologically because I was a tough kid, and I just threw him out.
I told my father this story at the dinner table in his home in Columbus, OH. He was living alone as mom then was in a beautiful facility for people living with Alzheimer’s. He was at first incredulous, but after I told him he could ask my brother Jim to verify the story, he became highly agitated. He wanted to know where Father McClory was now. He wanted to go find him and commit who knows what.
So after sharing this with my siblings on Sunday evening, I moved to a warmer and loving side of my father’s being. It was 2008 when Dad had finally realized that my Deb was not going to recover fully and would suffer from severe short-term memory loss and partial cognitive impairment for the rest of her life. He was with us on Long Island for thanksgiving. On the morning of his departure back to Columbus, Ohio, we were sitting having coffee; he looked at me and said, “buddy, you have such a long road ahead of you.” He had tears in his eyes, and he looked away out the back slider to our beautiful backyard. I walked him to the car, and I was just barely holding it together. I hugged him and told him I loved him, and he was off. He loved Deb the most out of his daughters-in-law. It was his compassion. He always insisted that she sit on the right-hand side of him at his birthday parties that were annual events in Columbus. I think about that, and I am sad that there were times due to hard circumstances that I couldn’t make them.
Dear reader, thank you for visiting.