Father's Day

Well it is approaching Father's Day again. I do not celebrate it with my father. My father and I have not gotten along for as far back as I am able to remember. During my days growing up, all I remember of him are his biting hurtful words to me and his totally negative attitude toward me. He also often enough resorted to physical demonstrations of his dislike for me. For whatever reason he only acted like this to me not the rest of my siblings. Although now he treats my older brother with pretty much the same contempt. That surprised me because growing up my older brother was the pride and joy who could do no wrong. I think our father changed his attitude to my brother over differing political points of view but I am not able to say exactly.

I have no idea what triggered my father's animosity aimed in my direction. As a young adult I often wondered about what his motive was for this behavior. My first thought was maybe he isn't my biological father or something but I quickly stopped trying to figure it out since by then I was no longer living under his roof. I thought what the hell difference does it make now anyway if we don't get along. We don't have to get along. We can just go our separate ways and live our own lives and forget the past animosity. Well that doesn't work out so well. He always was very good at acting in public like he was the nicest guy in the world but then when he was alone with me outside of the hearing range and sight of others he would start digging at me as meanly as he could. When I was finally old enough and large enough to fight back it was too late to ever have even a civil relationship with him. The day that happened was when I returned home from Madison after the police had wrongly arrested me during the antiwar riots in the late sixties. He very harshly mouthed off at me then charged me like he was going to get physical but I stood up to him and he backed down. I left that day and never looked back. We went for years without any contact. I wandered around the world for years and became a father myself. My parents came out to visit after the birth of my first son. I got along well with my mom but my father was still the same spiteful mean spirited person. Some things just never change.

Today, my siblings do not understand why I am so "mean" to their loving father by talking openly about my experiences with him. They do not believe their father could have ever acted so cruelly to me. They accuse me of making up lies about him. It is true that he treated them much differently than he treated me. I am happy for them. I am the bad guy now in their eyes. My father very carefully cultivates that with them. He knows exactly what he is doing. I do not understand the why of his motives for his continuing animosity and I never will but it is the reality for now and for ever as far as I can see. So I have pretty much lost any relationship with the rest of my siblings and extended family over this. There is nothing I can do about that since it is their decision. I guess that was what my father wanted, me out of the family. I won't say it doesn't hurt but I have gone past this to just live my life in peace. I don't want any animosity in my life. There is entirely too much of it in the world. My children are also losers in this silly situation because they miss out on lots of extended family contact. There will be no Father's Day celebration between my father and myself. To everybody else though, Happy Father's Day!