A long time ago.
A long time ago.
loading...

People often ask others if they have any regrets. Often the answer is no because “I am who I am because of my decisions in life.” There are a few things that I’d go back and change if I could. One would be the relationship I had with my father. Our relationship was non-existent at best and unsettling when he was around.

This is horrible but I don’t even know the day he died. I think it was sometime in August of 2005? I’m not going to go into how it was with him when I was a kid for a few reasons. First, Mom did the best she could raising me and my sister and to drag them into this post isn’t fair or right. And second, my memories are so vague it would take all day to try to write about those years. I will say he never hit or abused me in the traditional sense. Being around him was certainly like walking on egg shells but anyway I want to talk about from the age of 18 onward.

He lived in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and we lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. You can’t get too much further apart and remain the same country so I never saw him after a brief moment in 1993.

I always blamed him for never reaching out to me, always thought he was the jerk for leaving our family. He had issues with alcohol but so do many people. That didn’t make him a bad person just a man who needed help. He wasn’t the easiest person to get along with for long periods of time. He was fine in small doses but again, many if not all people are like that to some degree.

Mom more or less forced me to talk to him while he was in final care; I guess they call that Hospice. I did talk to him on the phone and we apologized to each other for the communication standoff. Within a few weeks after that conversation he passed.

In retrospect, I sort of wish we had that apology call earlier in his life, or at least before he got sick with cancer. I think he died at 68 years old? Again things I should know about him.

If you and your father are at odds over an issue unless you can’t reconcile because of severity do it on Sunday because you never know when he’ll be gone and you can’t bring him back.

Finally, don’t worry about me, I’ve come to grips with all of it and understand it was me just as much as it was him for not reconnecting. Dad, hope all is well with you and maybe we’ll try that father-son thing again when it’s time. RIP.

More From 92 Moose