I'm taking part in the Betchfest Blog Exchange this weekend where I'll host another blogger and provide them with a safe place to rant. This month's rant (below) comes to us from Issa, who's unafraid to be named, at Issa's Crazy World. Enjoy! If you want to bitch be sure to read all the details at Her Bad Mother's Basement. If you haven't signed up for the bitch exchange this month you can bitch on your own blog and leave a comment on that post to be included. I'll be out there this weekend too, bitching to my heart's content on another blog. Click through as many bitchy posts as you can to see if you can find me. Happy bitching and happy Labor Day weekend!
It was about two and a half years ago when she let it slip. A wine induced mistake that changed my opinion of you forever. We'd always had issues. A superficial relationship, I've always called it. Being a bigger person than you or her, I've continued to put out all the energy in our relationship. It shouldn't be this way, as I'm your child, your first born, your only daughter, but alas, it is. It's been this way for years, as far back as I can remember in fact. But I've done it anyway; made all the phone calls, shelled out the money to visit you and made sure my children had a chance to get to know you. I didn't believe it should be this way, but I knew it was the only way it would ever be. I told people it was okay, that you were important enough for me to make the effort, that I loved you enough for the both of us.
Until that night. The night your wife got a little too drunk (when is she not drunk?) and told me that there was another baby. That you'd gotten a woman pregnant in between mom and her; that you'd known and not cared enough to be involved. That she went back to Sweden, married her ex-boyfriend and lived happily every after. With your son. I was told not to think about it and not to bring it up to you. Oh he'd be so mad if he knew I'd told you, she said. Even in her drunken moments, your wife certainly knows how to cover her own butt.
Forget, what an interesting word. We're not talking about a lost sock or blankie here, not even a lost cat. No, we're talking about a brother. My brother in fact; one who I'll never get to meet. One who probably has no idea that his dad is not his biological dad. That he has siblings; twin brothers who are about three years older than him and a sister who is 5 years older. A sister who has spent two years wondering about him; wondering what he looked like, wondering if he's like her or like one of her brothers. Wondering if he's happy and healthy and taken care of. Wondering.
I can't look at you anymore; can't bear to look you in the eyes. Where I used to see my dad, now I see a coward. A coward who did what was easier, instead of what was right. I wonder why you let her leave, why you never looked for your son, even though you must know exactly where he lives, since your buddies still go back and forth between here and Sweden. I know you must know abut him. What he looks like, how he's doing; you have to know. You weren't some 20 year old kid, you weren't a poor man; you were a thirty-three year old man with an ex-wife, three kids, a business and a mortgage. You were old enough to know better. You were old enough to have stepped up and been responsible, even if she still went back to Sweden and got married. There is no excuse for what you did. He is your son, how could you not have wanted to know him?
I look at my little girls and feel my baby boy pressing on my bladder and I just can't imagine not wanting to know them, no matter the situation. Heck I can't imagine going through my life, not knowing this kid who is my baby brother.
When you call me, I can't talk to you for more than minute. I hand the girls the phone and leave the room. When you said you'd be out here (for a race, never for me) the weekend the baby is due, I hoped you'd not be able to come. I don't want to see you….but at the same time I do want to see you. You are still my dad and I still love you. My kids deserve to know their grandfather. But to me you are now a coward.
I hope you don't make it out here this time, because my hormones are such that I'm likely to let you have it. Maybe losing a baby last year changed me, but I can't see how a parent could do what you did. I'd forgiven you for the things you let your wife do too me and for basically never being there for me; but I can't forgive you for this. This is unforgivable.
