Letter 2: Dear Dad

 I wish you’d realized how lonely I was as a child and that I desperately needed a parent to be a parent. I needed someone in the family to “be the adult” and set boundaries up front, not retroactively. I wanted to spend time with you, but like Mom, you put your work first. 

I’m not sure why your adult issues were passed on to us kids. I never needed to know about your still-festering anger about your ex-wife, or your desperation to make up for the time you didn’t talk to your mother by trying to force that relationship on us. I know you had very traditional views on who ran the house and how, but your inflexibility caused strife between you and mom - which was another thing that, as a child, I didn’t need to hear about.

I don’t know why you chose to absent yourself from your family, but it was effective. I don’t know why you didn’t serve as a check against Mom’s excesses, but avoiding that didn’t help any of us. I wanted to spend time with you as a child, but you made it very difficult. Was it easier to just turn a blind eye and a deaf ear?

I know you didn’t want kids really, but I tried to be the best non-kid kid I could be. I learned to play chess, poker, and how to shoot pool. I learned about the space program because of your enthusiasm. I tried not to ask for things too much and I tried to be as easy-going with you as I could. I tried, Daddy - why didn’t you?