Daddy Drama

Well, this is odd. You wont find me talking about my Father often. Not for lack of love, or lack of caring, more for lack of knowledge. My Mom and Dad got divorced when my sister and I were very young. We moved back to Newton and lived with my Grandparents and my Dad kinda did his own thing. Grew up quite a bit. My Mom got to do the same thing, she just happened to live in the same house as us and my Grandparents. My Dad came back into our lives when I was about 5 and passed away from cancer when I was 9. I have always been a Momma's girl and the thing I remember most about my Dad was that he never forced us to go with him. I usually chose to stay at home with my Mom or my Grandparents. I have few memories of my Father and even fewer good memories. I know that he tried his hardest and really that is all you can ask of someone. I have always considered myself very luck to not have those "Daddy Problems" that some girls who grew up without a father sometimes have. The reason this is, I had my Grandfather. Now this is a man I will always talk about. But sometimes, weird things happen in my life and I have an odd sense of connection to my Dad, Randy. They happen at the most bizarre moments and sometimes it takes me quite a while to piece it all back to him. My Mom and Dad remained good friends until his passing and she truly lost her soul mate the day he died. I truly, 100% believe that if my Dad were still alive today, my parents would be married, living happily somewhere. They got married young, had babies young, and truly couldn't handle the stress. That doesn't mean they didn't love each other with all of their beings, they just didn't know how to make it work. My Mom was lucky enough to have my Grandparents to fall back on and got to do a lot of her growing up in a house with her children and her parents. My Dad kind of got the unlucky end of the stick and had to do a lot of his growing up on his own. I would never say that my Dad didn't love us, or he went off and forgot about us. I truly think he just didn't know how to have both lives that he wanted. I have accepted that, and truly try and love the man that my Mom tells me about. The man she loves so deeply she can barely talk about him without crying. This is a man that I truly don't feel I know personally, but a man that I have been told many stories about.

I have recently started watching a show Sons of Anarchy. It is about a motorcycle club that doesn't always do the best things. From the first episode of this show I watched, I just felt a connection. It was something much greater then just TV. Something more then being attracted to the actors, or the drama, or wanting to know more. It was as if I needed to be watching this show. That watching this show brought me closer to something. I talked to my sister about it, and she told me that her and my Grandpa watched it together every week before he passed away. I re-watched the show and realized that wasn't it. It didn't remind me of my Grandpa at all, and quite frankly it was weird to watch thinking that my Grandpa saw those things. I mean, my Grandpa was kind of a different person when my Grandma wasn't around. He would cuss, say "shit" or "damn" or his favorite "Jesus Christ". But, he wasn't this show. I was watching again last night and it kept taking me back to the same episode. Season 4 Episode 1. When Jax proposes to Tara. She talks about how she wants it, but she doesn't want her kids brought up in that life. I re-watched it 4 times and it finally clicked. My Father. Once again, I don't want to sound negative about my Dad, but from what I have been told, he didn't always make the best decisions. I can imagine my Mom there with children so young, thinking she wanted more for her children. She made the decision to leave and that is where we are now. My Dad loved motorcycles. My sister spent time with him in jail as an infant because he had her on the motorcycle with him at a young age. I don't want to say that my Dad was off running guns, or killing people, but he loved to ride. The feeling that your friends are sometimes more of your family then your own family was hit home as well. My Dad had a best friend, Jeff, who at times I think was more of a brother to him then some of his own brothers. This life, this doing anything to protect your family. This was my Dad. A scene in the show, one of the characters, Opie, chooses not to go home to his kids. He says that it is a bad time to be with his kids after something that he just did. I can see my Dad doing/saying the same thing. I am not a parent, but I can imagine there are things in life that you do that you arent proud of, that you dont want your children to know about or be witness too. I am grateful that my Dad loved my sister and I enough to walk away when he needed to and knowing that maybe being around us wasn't the best. I am thankful that he came back into our lives and that I got to spend the few years that I did with him before he passed away. I am thankful that I have people in my life that love him so deeply and are willing to share that love with me. I am thankful I have such a caring and understand Mother who could hate my Dad for some of the things that he did, but she doesn't. She loves him so much still to this day. And I am thankful for moments like this that bring me connected to my Father. A connection that is most of the time lost.