Me at 8
I don’t make any money at blogging, but it’s cost me a lot. Several months ago, an old friend requested that I remove a post. When I refused, albeit compassionately, he stopped talking to me.
Now it’s my father’s turn. Why should I be surprised? It was only a matter of time before he joined the hundreds of readers who visit my blogs each month.
…Though it did take him three years.
…And there have been countless phone calls, gifts, letters and emails sent directly to him that were evidently unseen, unheard or at least never responded to.
Apparently someone sat him down to show him my words, the ones specifically about him.
I scan my brain. What have I written that includes my father?
Let’s see… there’s the piece about the divorce. Yep, that would be hard for him to read; and then there’s the one from childhood… That one is actually kind of nice. There’s the poem about spanking. That would be rough…
Nothing else comes to mind in the moment, but then again, I’ve published over a thousand pieces in the past few years. When I get home, I open up my laptop and Google, “Kelly Salasin, father.” I’m surprised by how little there is.
“Should I just remove all the pieces that talk about my father?” I ask my son. (If anyone knows the burden of being related to a blogger, it’s my sixteen year old. )
“No,” he says. “They’re your pieces, about your life.”
Still, I feel bad. I know it’s challenging to have a memoirist in the family. And what will happen when my book comes out? My father will probably never talk to me again; though it will be hard to tell because he has so little to do with me anyway. Lots of times I have to remind myself that I have a father, that he’s still living.
I guess I should be satisfied that I have garnished some of his attention. He’s actually reading my work. He’s hearing how I experienced my childhood. He’s even feeling it.
That’s a good thing, right?
Why does it feel so bad?
Why do I sit in bed, late into the night, staring out at the stars, feeling like an orphan?
“I wish Mom was here,” I say, but then I retract it. She’d be reading my blogs too. I have an entire blog inspired in the wake of her loss.
I guess I could have waited until my dad died to write anything that included him so that he wouldn’t have the feel “the daggers.”
But they’re not meant to be daggers, they’re warning signals… to others: Don’t spank your children. Don’t forget about them in the middle of a divorce. Don’t abandon them when you have a new family. Don’t think that your 30 or 40 or even 50 year old daughter doesn’t need her father. Doesn’t want him. Doesn’t love him even though he has hurt her.
As a lifelong human advocate, I feel it my duty to share. In fact, I’ve been like that my whole life. Some of the biggest fights I had my father were over my sisters; and before that, speaking up for myself:
“That isn’t fair,” I’d say, and he’d banish me to my room.
“I don’t want to…” I’d complain, and he’d leave me in the car while the rest of the family went sightseeing.
“I’m too old to be told to go to bed,” and he’d threaten me with his size.
The truth is that he was the one who taught me to speak up. To be candid. To be bold. To be forthright.
If I thought I lost my father at 19, just wait…
These are the words that echo in my heart; the ones that reveal the most… about me.
It’s taken the loss of my father’s love, the awful threat of that loss, to make me realize what my life is all about; and that’s a price I can’t afford to pay.
Kelly Salasin, January 2012
Though not a week goes by without the blessing of a reader’s appreciation, I offer this to those I’ve hurt with my words:
If I have harmed you in any way, knowingly or unknowingly, please forgive me.
If you have harmed me in any way, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive you.
May you be safe.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
And
May you live with ease.
(the Loving-Kindness Meditation)
