I’ve had mixed feelings about Father’s Day for the majority
of my life.
My mom and my father T.C. divorced before my first birthday,
so my earliest memories of family weren’t exactly nuclear. I know I had visits with him. I know I loved him. I know he loved me. But I
also know it was complicated.
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| More like nuclear - am I right??? Source:giphy.com |
He was a truck-driver.
His visits were sporadic. They
were special, but not consistent.
When I was three years old, my mother met and married my
dad, Bob Walker. He’s the dad I grew up
with. He’s the dad that gave me my
brother Eric and later, (spoiler alert!)
a whole additional family of siblings when he remarried.
For a little while, I had something close to “normal” at
home. Dad joined the Army and worked as
a photojournalist for the base paper, The Star Persidian. We lived in a little duplex home at the
Hamilton AFB in Novato, CA. Dad worked
long hours during the week, but on the weekend we’d take day trips into San
Francisco, Muir Woods or Pt. Reyes. We
went to Alcatraz and he’d take me along when he drove the base bus for Folks
Marches in lovely parks all around the Bay Area. On holidays, we’d visit his Uncle
Dick and Aunt Evy in Southern California and take trips to Disney Land. He and
I would spin and spin and spin in the Teacups. Mom would watch from the side,
because they made her sick!
It was almost four years of living in a Seurat painting. It was lovely and warm, but just a little bit fuzzy, because if you looked as us too closely, you’d be able to see that the pretty picture was nothing but carefully spaced little flecks of color and the things that a family needs to really stick together were missing from between the dots.
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| Maybe this one is just a little too on the nose... Source: https://media.giphy.com/media/MS8UECLiPreNi/giphy.gif |
Some of the spaces may have been because of my other
dad. He liked to send me cards and gifts
every now and then and photos of his other children – my brothers and
sisters. He offered on occasion to try
to get our families together so I could meet my other siblings.
I didn’t know how to feel.
I knew I was somehow still important to this man I never saw anymore,
and I knew that he was still important to me.
But it felt like some sort of betrayal to my mom, my new dad and my brother. My heart felt big enough to love everyone,
but I didn’t want to hurt my new daddy’s feelings. And I didn’t want my brother to think that I
wasn’t his “whole” sister, just because we’d been born to different fathers or
because I had other brothers and sisters living somewhere else.
Other factors were also at play: financial factors,
geographical factors and my mother’s brain-injury factor that happened just a
year into our California odyssey. Once
my dad’s enlistment ended, we left California, and the warm colors and hazy
details of our little family washed away. The distance between my dad and I widened in
direct proportion to the distance between him and my mom. It was a horrible time. I was only 12 years old and I was pretty sure
I just wanted to die. I didn’t know if
making it through high school was a worthwhile goal because I couldn’t really
see a light at the end of the ominous tunnel that was junior high.
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| Like really obsessed! Source:https://media.giphy.com/media/Q9A55jF4sggdq/giphy.gif |
But for a little while, things got better. When Eric and I went to visit Dad, he worked
harder than he had in at least a year to really be present for us. We spent lazy weekends together nuking
popcorn and watching movies. Or
sometimes we’d go to my Grandpa Walker’s nursery and work outside with all the
plants and trees and get paid for the day.
He even took us on a vacation to Salem, Massachusetts, because I was going
through this phase where I was obsessed with
the Witch Trials.
Then Dad took the logical step of any divorced man in his
early 30’s and remarried. This was a
perfectly natural thing to do. And I
suppose, it should have been a happy event.
But Eric and I just weren’t ready to share our dad with a whole new
family. I tried to barter. What if weekends were “whole family time” and
Wednesdays were just for Eric and me? I
was told that I was being controlling and manipulative.
But when we were with the whole new family, we didn’t really
get our “dad.” We got this watered down,
worn-out version of him that was trying too hard to make everyone happy and
really pleasing nobody.
I got a little older and a little harder. My 12-year-old despair solidified into
13-year-old apathy and devolved into 14-year-old acrimony.
Since the whole “Brady Bunch” thing wasn’t working, I
eventually opted out of scheduled visits altogether. It’s so much easier to
keep from getting hurt when you go through the motions of not caring.
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| Yep. Not quite. Source:https://media.giphy.com/media/EezZdS8K1stl6/giphy.gif |
Maybe I should have tried harder. Maybe he should have tried harder. Maybe we just both did the best we could,
given the situation. I remember judging my
dad and feeling that he was being immature for someone with the benefit of 30+
years of experience. However, once I
made into my 30’s I realized how little three decades prepare you for the
really hard crap. I’ve learned to cut all my parents infinitely more slack as I’ve gotten older.
Fast forward to my high school graduation. T.C. shows up to surprise me and YES – I was
surprised. I hadn’t seen him since my 5th
birthday, when he brought his new wife and my baby sister Charlene to the
party.
Now he was single again, with limited contact with his other
children. Now he wanted me to move to Utah to spend time and get to know him.
Now he wanted to be critical of my decision to move to NYC to pursue acting at
one of the top schools in the country (AADA – not AMDA!)
It was so weird to have a father so interested in my life
again. It was a bumpy road. “Dad” hadn’t
been my favorite word for several years by this point, and I wasn’t entirely
sure I wanted to take another stab at having one. But curiosity got the best of me. After all, I was carrying around this guy’s
DNA. I was 18 and I needed to know
everything I could about me – like
every 18-year-old. And it made sense
that since this guy was present at the factory when I was assembled, he might
give me more insight into what made me tick.
I was 20 when I took T.C. up on his offer to move out to
Salt Lake City. I wasn’t really feeling
the Intermountain West. I considered
myself a New Yorker through and through (in spite of my brief stint as a
California Girl ;) ) But he took me
hiking, and went to Karaoke nights with me and tried – God bless him he tried – to teach me how to play pool.
Some things just aren’t hereditary.
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| Possibly actual footage! Source:gify.com |
So here’s where I’ll leave it for today. The desolate 12-year-old Hillary wept on
Father’s Day, and the jaded 14-year-old Hillary probably said something like,
“I don’t really have a dad anymore.” But
today I’m crying tears that celebrate the story of my heart. Today I celebrate T.C., the dad I just lost –
again. He showed me that late really IS better than never.
And I also celebrate Bob, the dad I still have, that I don’t spend
enough time with. I’ve never called him my stepdad,
except to explain my family life to outsiders. But if step
means “step up” to be a dad, well, I guess he did just that. He truly gave
me that pretty portrait of a happy family life – even if it was for just a few
short years. I do have those memories and they are so very beautiful.
So thank you, Dad.
And thank you for being supportive of my recent loss. I wish you and T.C. could both see the tears
that I’m crying right now. They aren’t
tears of anguish or self-pity. They are
tears of love and gratitude and forgiveness because I’m finally old enough to
begin to understand your side of my
story, and I’m finally ready to share my side of it with you.
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| Dad (Bob) was so busy taking photos, there aren't many like this gem <3! |
As far as gifts go, it’s not all that pretty or pricey. But I can say it’s from deep within my heart
and I hope on this particular day, it speaks to yours. And to those of you who can’t celebrate
Father’s Day with your dads or with your children, if they’re still around –
please don’t give up on each other. Yes,
sometimes it helps to let go for a little while. Sometimes people need space and perspective.
But no matter how wide the chasm, no matter how loudly the door slammed, it
doesn’t have to stay closed forever.
Love will always find a way. And
sometimes, love needs to start inside you before you can see it in others.
Happy Father’s Day.
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