My Loving Fathers.

The last couple of days I've been thinking about my father which is more bitter than sweet for me. I suppose I never bonded with my father because I don't have the same feelings for him as I do for my mother.

When I think back on my childhood I wonder if it's maybe because my mother, from the time I was a baby till I was maybe 3 or allowed me to call someone else daddy. This same person I called daddy would beat my mother so badly she would spend weeks in the hospital. My most vivid childhood memory is of him literally trying to tie my mother's legs around the bedpost with her screaming and him yelling and me in the same bed pretending I was asleep but peeking out of the slits of my eyes. The abuse didn't stop there either, it wasn't enough to beat my mother he also had to molest me and I can't remember if he would beat me too. I do remember running from him and him throwing a recliner at me and the ultimate being must have been at my side that day because in the middle of a run I just dropped down into a ball and the recliner landed on me bowl like so it didn't really touch me but I was stuck with it over me. I hope I don't remember him beating me because he didn't because frankly the alternative scares me. I also remember begging to play with some roof shingles and him finally relenting on the promise that when I was finished I would put them back. Well I didn't remember to put them back and the dog shit on some of them. He got so mad the next morning that he took one of the shingles that was shat on and forced my mouth open and shoved all that shit in my mouth. Of course I was screaming and immediately started throwing up during which my mom (did I mention she was blind) came to my defense and that was another beating I can't remember which one won that one as I was occupied (sometimes my mom would kick his ass but not often).

Now my real dad has tried to convince me (and my half brothers) that he would pick us kids up from our different mothers and take us to his house every weekend. I do remember him coming to get us but only when it was convenient for him and there was always a different woman in the car when he did(which wasn't very often). I've told him some of what happened to me and my mom when I was little (the abuse of both of us continued till I was 11 and she finally left that man) his response to all this makes me livid to this day. Now this is my real father, the one man in the whole world who is supposed to love, comfort and protect me. My father told me the molested was my fault that I should have told him what was going on. Apparently he chooses not to remember how I'd scream, cry and cling to my mothers leg and beg her not to make me go with him (he was a stranger and a man so I was terrified) when he first started to get me for visits. So in my loving fathers opinion I should have told him about something that was going on since as far back as I can remember till I was 11. Sometimes it's no wonder I don't like him or get along with him or what really drives him nuts is I don't ask him for anything.

Yet what I don't understand is why I felt (in the past) compelled to try and build some kind of father daughter relationship with him when I'm always the one stuck putting all the work. And I don't understand why he doesn't appreciate it, my brothers don't even call him unless they need something but in his eyes I never seem to measure up to them. And I'm his only kid with their own place, vehicle, degree (almost), but most importantly not on drugs....Wait I won't even get into that because that's a whole nother story.