Questions for an absent father.
I want a hug. I miss you, dad. I can't tell you that, but I do. I think of you every day. I wonder if you think of me every day. Do you have memories of me that are happy, or did you try to erase me from your life when we stopped talking?
I think about how you don't know who I am as a person anymore. When I got my license, my first thought was that you wouldn't know. When I got a scholarship to a college and graduated with a 4.0, I wondered if you would have been proud of me. When I went to college, when I moved out of my mom's house, when I got my first boyfriend, when I bought my first car, when I turned 16, 18 and then 21, when my big sister got married and I became an aunt... I was always thinking, "Is dad thinking about me as much as I think about him? Does he care?"
I've never been proud of myself because you have never been proud of me. You've never been proud of me because you've never seen anything to be proud of, and you've never seen me enough to see anything at all. You don't even know me anymore. Do you hate me? Or do you just lack love? When my birthday comes, do you think of me? Do you even remember my birthday or is it just a passing calendar date you don't recognize as an outlier? Do you even care?
I was talking to a friend about you yesterday. He asked me what I miss the most about you. I said your hugs. Despite everything, you gave great hugs. I remember the last time you gave me an "I love you" hug, and you didn't even have to say the words to me. I just knew because I could feel it. When I was 10, you asked me to kiss you on the cheek and it felt weird to do. I didn't want to. You got sad. Was that the moment you looked at me as someone that grew up that you couldn't lie to anymore, or did it start before that?
I still see you in the world. Sometimes, Dad, I am walking around a store and I can smell your cologne. I wonder if it's you for a second. For that one second, I feel terror, longing and betrayal all at once. I wish I could smell your cologne again. I wonder if you see me around you the way I still see you.
I find myself looking at your Facebook sometimes. It's public, so I can see everything you post. You said you missed your kid(singular), but you were only referring to 1 out of four of your kids. Sometimes I wonder if the one out of four will still talk to you when he is an adult, or if you will screw him up the same way you screwed three out of four of us up. Do you cheat in front of one out of four the same way you did in front of me? Does one out of four have to experience what I did? Would you post that on your Facebook? Do you love me still? Did you ever love me? Was it real love, or was it just convenient for you to love me? Did playing the role of a good dad every few years get you the attention you desperately want? Do you still lie and tell people that I am dead because it is easier to explain than you being a deadbeat?
Dad, sometimes I wish you were dead. Sometimes I think it'd be easier to know I couldn't feel your love anymore because you couldn't give it to me rather than know that you choose every day to not love me, talk to me, or to know me. Maybe that's why you said I was dead even way back when I was a kid. Maybe you missed me so much that you didn't know what to say so you just said I died. I miss my dad. I miss your hugs. I miss you.