I’m not particularly fond of Christmas. I know this disappoints my dear wife who above all other holidays LOVES this time of year. However, I don’t have the fondest of memories only because a traumatic event happened on December 26, 1979. My father left home and never came back.  After four decades, I’ve never forgotten the date.  He never returned to our lives and built for himself a new, 3rd family (he was married once before he met my mother), with his girlfriend.  We all suspect he got her pregnant when he was still married to my mother because his ‘step’ son was born almost 7 months later, the evidence (short of doing a DNA test) is pretty compelling. Also, my dad was too vain to date a woman pregnant with another man’s baby.  Of course, my dad has denied it but my half brother is about the brownest skinned Baker I’ve ever seen with the same smile, high cheekbones, and solid build as all of my other brothers.

I don’t know of a good way to end things when a marriage breaks apart. I just don’t think how my dad handled it was exemplary. He treated all of his kids with my mother as if we were in on some wild conspiracy theory that we all hated him and he distanced himself about as far away as he could. Quite the contrary, we all still wanted his time, his attention, and his love because he was our father. He didn’t call.  He didn’t write.  He didn’t visit.  He just packed up and left.  If he could’ve been man enough to share with us what was going on, we may have been able to handle everything better than we did. When we finally did speak to him, his words were filled with contempt for my mother and that she had made us all turn against him.  Still, we invited him to key events in our lives that he just blew off.  When asked about it, his empty promises made us all feel as if we weren’t important. His actions proved it.

He missed key events like birthdays, graduations, Special Olympics for our dear sister Janie, and weddings. This I’ve never been able to understand. OK, so you weren’t compatible with my mom. Got it. But, did you have to divorce us too?  Didn’t we matter?

I was a Senior in High School when my dad left home. I acted out. I did selfish things. I tried to play the grown up in my family and sometimes I even was the disciplinarian because my poor mother fell apart. After she found out about my dad’s affair, and that his girlfriend was pregnant, she understandably threw him out. Of course, my father turned this into his poor me excuse of why he left. Not the fact he was a piece of shit as a husband and wasn’t man enough to speak honestly to us about what was going on. He just left. Plus, he didn’t contact us again until the divorce was final. That was three agonizing months until March of 1980. We didn’t know if he was alive or dead. Every Christmas reminds me of this sad state of affairs.  My father is a coward.

I made it through each day by internalizing my sadness. I felt like no one really loved me. It came out in other ways whether it was getting drunk, merciless teasing of my younger brothers, or sleeping with a good friends’ girlfriend. Of course, years later, I knew I was acting like my dad and I became angry and knew I did things to myself, my siblings and my friends I shouldn’t have done. Every Christmas my thoughts turn to that time and what an ugly person I was then. I’d like to think I’m better because of my old man. I’d like for this holiday to be the last time I feel guilty for the crappy things I’ve done.  I’d like for this to be the last time I feel I don’t matter.

Crazy as this will sound though, I wish my father was still in my life. Forty years is a long time to wait but I hold no illusions.  Neither one of us is getting any younger. I have forgiven him but I can never forget what he did to me, my brothers and sisters, and especially my mother. I know that others would have me try to reach out and make amends. They tell me how when he goes I’ll feel regret. I don’t agree. My father has to show me something he’s probably not able to – caring about someone other than himself.  It’s his loss as much as mine.

I’d like to spend a Christmas break thinking only about the good in my life.  My wonderful wife, my awesome in-laws, my brothers and sisters, great friends.  My mother is so far gone with Alzheimer’s I can only hope in her simple mind she’s reliving happier times.  I want to live my life like my dogs have with unconditional love and feeling like eating, pooping, exercise, and belly rubs are all you need to live a wonderful life.  Heck, after birth, a pooch never sees their parents again.  How are they able to cope?

I wish I knew.