11.23.2004
Looking My Dead Dad in the Eyes
It's been a while since I have added anything to this blog; seems like I've been having a miserable couple of weeks. Two weeks ago today my mom called me to tell me that my biological father had passed away and that I should probably go to the funeral home to pay my last respects.
I had not seen the bastard in almost twenty-two years, but I decided to do what was right for my karma, to prove that I am indeed a better man at my worst than he ever was at his best, and make the four hour drive to Flushing to view his frail ugly corpse and show my face to the family. This was a trip neither his mother or his sister was willing to make, to demonstrate the extent to which he made himself a stranger to his family.
This whole shebang has left me, of course, engulfed with all sorts of mixed emotions. Two years ago my sisters and I buried my stepfather, who for all intents and porpoises was my real dad. This asshole I buried in my mind halfway through adolescence.
My whole life I would constantly hear from family and friends about how I am the spitting image of him, his unfortunate DNA has structured my face to resemble his enough to probably fool the sophisticated face recognition super bowl they use to catch probation violators at the Super Bowl. Personally, I wouldn't know if I look like him, cause I haven't seen him since Reagan's first term. At family gatherings people would come up to me and say, "Detlef, you haven't aged a bit. Wholly shit." "I'm Chris, Detlef's son." "How's he doing?" "fuck if I know." "Sorry."
When I saw his emaciated and gray body (six months of battling pancreatic cancer will wreak havoc on your body), all I could think was, "I'm better looking than him." His hair was dark and slicked back, and he still had the pornstar moustache. He was five-six in lifts, and looked just tiny, skinny and frail. In my imaginary reconciliations I harbored in my mind I would always picture him as some ruddy-faced German, with a long gray moustache like Gepetto; I even pictured him in lederhosen and Alpine hat. (Probably because the last time i saw him we went to an Oktoberfest). Instead, he was small dark and swarthy, like me. Or an Azeri.
What struck me most about that evening was the lack of emotion and feeling I had. Had I really become this hardened? I felt basic human sympathy for the man, and even his harpie of a wife, but nothing more than I would feel for the victims of a mudslide in Bangladesh or the Columbia disaster, I was that removed. I was even kind of happy he was dead, and I could feel myself stifling (nervous?) laughter when I went up to the coffin with my sister.
His wife's son came up to my sister Denise's boyfriend and called him Chris, and then started to talk to him like he was me. The asshole.
My cousins came up to me and expressed sympathy and everything, but really, I wasn't really that sorry myself.
His stepson came up and said "Dave [my father went by Dave in America] talked about you all the time. He was proud." Really? The two letters I got in twenty-two years didn't mention anything about pride. What a pair of douchebags. The ass didn't pay my mom her child support, and he never paid a cent for my considerable college expenses. He forgot all of our birthdays, I forgave him the first time he forgot mine, but I was irate when he missed my sister's a month later. He hurt my sister in so many ways; from the abandonment issue to telling her while she was in rehab that he didn't think she was his.
The past two weeks made me realize that I have to be an asshole too. No, I'm not going to abandon my girls and dissappear from their lives for a generation. I'm suing the frucking estate. My sister and I are going for the house in queens, the store in florida and whatever else they have hiding. Did I mention the fucker was loaded? I'm not the kind of milquetoast who believes in forgiveness; you pay for on this earth the misdeeds you performed. And I will act out as the vessel of that punishment. Dagnabbit.
It's been a while since I have added anything to this blog; seems like I've been having a miserable couple of weeks. Two weeks ago today my mom called me to tell me that my biological father had passed away and that I should probably go to the funeral home to pay my last respects.
I had not seen the bastard in almost twenty-two years, but I decided to do what was right for my karma, to prove that I am indeed a better man at my worst than he ever was at his best, and make the four hour drive to Flushing to view his frail ugly corpse and show my face to the family. This was a trip neither his mother or his sister was willing to make, to demonstrate the extent to which he made himself a stranger to his family.
This whole shebang has left me, of course, engulfed with all sorts of mixed emotions. Two years ago my sisters and I buried my stepfather, who for all intents and porpoises was my real dad. This asshole I buried in my mind halfway through adolescence.
My whole life I would constantly hear from family and friends about how I am the spitting image of him, his unfortunate DNA has structured my face to resemble his enough to probably fool the sophisticated face recognition super bowl they use to catch probation violators at the Super Bowl. Personally, I wouldn't know if I look like him, cause I haven't seen him since Reagan's first term. At family gatherings people would come up to me and say, "Detlef, you haven't aged a bit. Wholly shit." "I'm Chris, Detlef's son." "How's he doing?" "fuck if I know." "Sorry."
When I saw his emaciated and gray body (six months of battling pancreatic cancer will wreak havoc on your body), all I could think was, "I'm better looking than him." His hair was dark and slicked back, and he still had the pornstar moustache. He was five-six in lifts, and looked just tiny, skinny and frail. In my imaginary reconciliations I harbored in my mind I would always picture him as some ruddy-faced German, with a long gray moustache like Gepetto; I even pictured him in lederhosen and Alpine hat. (Probably because the last time i saw him we went to an Oktoberfest). Instead, he was small dark and swarthy, like me. Or an Azeri.
What struck me most about that evening was the lack of emotion and feeling I had. Had I really become this hardened? I felt basic human sympathy for the man, and even his harpie of a wife, but nothing more than I would feel for the victims of a mudslide in Bangladesh or the Columbia disaster, I was that removed. I was even kind of happy he was dead, and I could feel myself stifling (nervous?) laughter when I went up to the coffin with my sister.
His wife's son came up to my sister Denise's boyfriend and called him Chris, and then started to talk to him like he was me. The asshole.
My cousins came up to me and expressed sympathy and everything, but really, I wasn't really that sorry myself.
His stepson came up and said "Dave [my father went by Dave in America] talked about you all the time. He was proud." Really? The two letters I got in twenty-two years didn't mention anything about pride. What a pair of douchebags. The ass didn't pay my mom her child support, and he never paid a cent for my considerable college expenses. He forgot all of our birthdays, I forgave him the first time he forgot mine, but I was irate when he missed my sister's a month later. He hurt my sister in so many ways; from the abandonment issue to telling her while she was in rehab that he didn't think she was his.
The past two weeks made me realize that I have to be an asshole too. No, I'm not going to abandon my girls and dissappear from their lives for a generation. I'm suing the frucking estate. My sister and I are going for the house in queens, the store in florida and whatever else they have hiding. Did I mention the fucker was loaded? I'm not the kind of milquetoast who believes in forgiveness; you pay for on this earth the misdeeds you performed. And I will act out as the vessel of that punishment. Dagnabbit.
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