Dad is not going to call again

[Kateline]

I just lost my dad who is 64 two days ago. Doesn’t seem real to be honest. I am 24 and I haven’t physically seen the man in more than ten years when he left my siblings and I to go back to his home state that Thanksgiving years ago as he couldn’t financially afford to stay with us and he assume going back home would be the best.To me I regret giving him permission to go because naive me believed he would come back.

 Him going back strained the relationships with all of his kids even at me. My dad was so paranoid of my mother that he refuse to step foot back home. Yet I was the only kid who talked to him when I can. There were times that I just didn’t pick up because I didn’t want to have two hours of conversation over the phone after being exhausted with school and home life. Yet he tried to be a good dad and told me every call he loved me and my siblings. Send money when financially he couldn’t. He tried. I think all of us kids were bitter he never came back once and we resented that. He missed out on everything. Graduations, prom, college, jobs. Him telling us he was coming back and never coming back hurt us more. 
     What hurts the most is my last conversation with him was me going off on him when I know his side of the family doesn’t have the best health records from cancer, to Alzheimers yet I didn’t want accept the possibility of him having these things because he was my dad. As well as I never seen my dad since he left that day as we just talked on the phone I had to believe he was okay when we talked. He told me about his fumbles from getting robbed, living in a shelter, going to sleep at family until he was kicked out, his physical falls. Every story he told me he told me he was fine that he needed to hold out longer that good was coming his way soon. That was he going to go home soon.
 

Last phone call I blew up as  I was upset more so at my siblings and took it out on him and just yelled him for having opinions about his kids when he hasn’t physically seen him kids in years. That we grew up and he didn’t know who we are anymore. We aren’t the same as we were once but my last words to him was “I don’t believe you when you say you are coming home. I’ll believe it when you call me at the damn airport. It’s just talk…….” Silence……. I hung up and that was a month before he passed. He called multiple times but I was mad so I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to talk. Just let him go to voicemail because that is what always happens. I get mad and I don’t answer his voicemails and when I am ready I call him. He called me two days before he had a stroke I didn’t answer. I was going to call him back a day before I found out he was dead, it wouldn’t matter as he was admitted and couldn’t talk, but I didn’t because I wanted a day to myself. Now I live with this guilt that I couldn’t have talked to him before all of this. He called and I know my dad and I we would have made up and I would have told him the latest gossip and he would tell me what is going on with his life. Said I love you. Hang up and call weeks later. But I didn’t do that. I didn’t call back. Now he is never going to call me again……. 
 

How he passed is a mess right now but I know that would clear up eventually. What bothers me and haunts me is I hope he knew that I loved him. I have an aunt who is saying that he said that his kids want nothing to do with him as we don’t answer his calls. I hated hearing that. I know he wasn’t in the right state as he had Alzheimer’s (he hid from everyone) but I hate the thought of him passing thinking his kids or me didn’t love him. I love him. He is my dad. 
 

I gone months without hearing from him before but now knowing he won’t ever call me again…. I don’t like the idea. I just want one more phone call……

[Ronni_W]

Dear Kateline,

I am so sorry for your loss, and, especially, for the extenuating circumstances surrounding it. It really is so very difficult when there are so many other unusual factors to complicate things for us, in our loss. (It is not insensitive to know and to tell people that your own loss, because of your prior relationship with your dad and because of within all of the other family dynamics at play, is so very different and more difficult for you to be able to come to terms with or "cope with", than, for example, my own loss of my dad (in 1974) or my mom (in 2021),  My loss of my dad, and of my mom, was really quite 'normal' as far as death and dying goes, but...and, thus, so much easier for my own brain to understand, figure-out, work with, deal with, cope with.)

Nevertheless. My mom and I were also not on the best possible terms, when she passed or transitioned out of her physical body. And I'm not really sure that I said it enough to my husband, how much I loved and appreciated him. BUT. I still do think that they knew. I still do think that what you showed to your dad, and what I showed to my husband and my mom, was enough for them to get it. Yeah? Maybe? Maybe we did okay by them when they were still alive?

Sending you love, hugs, strength and comfort.     Ronni

[Aven]

I am truly sorry for your loss. Having a strained relationship with a parent can be one of the most frustrating things to deal with. I can relate to those dreaded phone calls that you just don’t want to answer and the times were your just not emotionally ready to deal with it.losing that person during that time can be gut wrenching. Thinking of all the times where you could have made up or what you would you would tell if they were in front of you can put you in a destructive place. It made myself angry. I pointed towards my fathers mistakes and time he turned his back on me. It didn’t help. It didn’t put the guilt away. I had to face the music to come to terms with my decisions. I hope you can find that. 

we all want  one more call. The call where we tell them our love. Even through the trauma and pain that we still love them and that they’ll always be our fathers

These types of situation really put into perspective on how valuable the time with our loved ones truly are. Hug the ones you love. Tell them how you feel. Live your life. Make that call to those you love here today. 
 

i know you can. To post these feeling is a good step towards healing. Continue to express them. Vent where ever you need or to whoever. Grief takes many forms and is a long road but you don’t have to do it alone. 
 

i hope this helps kateline