My father.....
I have never met my father. My mother left him before I was even born I think. I was never allowed to see him when he tried to contact us. There was some talk that he was planning to run away with me to Mexico so it is understandable. The last time he tried to see me I was 12. My mother didn't even tell me until years later.
Now I am 36. I have thought over the years about looking for him and getting to know that side of my family, but for one reason or another never have. He was into partying I think, drugs too maybe. Honestly, I wasn't sure I wanted that influence in my life. I always figured that I could maybe watch from afar...meet him without letting him know I was his daughter. I've checked things on the internet, but never found anything concrete.
This past August I was vacationing on the Oregon Coast with some of my family and my cousin and I got to talking. My father came up somehow (I don't remember how) and it got me curious so once I got home I started looking him up again. This time I found something.
An obituary.
It seems he has been dead since May of 1989. I would have been 15 at the time, just 3 years after he tried to contact me. I don't think my mom had even let me know by that time. The obit just said that he had died in his home so I'm thinking overdose.
It seems surreal that he has been dead for 21 years. He was only 38 when he died. Only 2 years older than I am now.
In his obit it mentioned his surviving family and in it I learned my Grandmother's name: Trinidad. I started looking her up and found another obituary. She died just this past May. She lived in the same town my maternal Grandfather lives in. We had my daughter's first birthday party there in April so I was in town one month before she died. It makes me sad to think of it. She was just across town while we were celebrating the birth of a great-granddaughter she didn't even know existed. A granddaughter of her deceased son. I wish I could have taken my daughter there and met her. She was 92 years old and living in a nursing home. I would very much have liked to meet her.
So it seems that the two people on my father's side that I was interested in meeting are dead.
I think I regret not meeting my grandmother more than my father just because I could have met her, whereas I didn't really have the option to meet my father since he died when I was so young.
It all just makes me feel so weird.
Now I am 36. I have thought over the years about looking for him and getting to know that side of my family, but for one reason or another never have. He was into partying I think, drugs too maybe. Honestly, I wasn't sure I wanted that influence in my life. I always figured that I could maybe watch from afar...meet him without letting him know I was his daughter. I've checked things on the internet, but never found anything concrete.
This past August I was vacationing on the Oregon Coast with some of my family and my cousin and I got to talking. My father came up somehow (I don't remember how) and it got me curious so once I got home I started looking him up again. This time I found something.
An obituary.
It seems he has been dead since May of 1989. I would have been 15 at the time, just 3 years after he tried to contact me. I don't think my mom had even let me know by that time. The obit just said that he had died in his home so I'm thinking overdose.
It seems surreal that he has been dead for 21 years. He was only 38 when he died. Only 2 years older than I am now.
In his obit it mentioned his surviving family and in it I learned my Grandmother's name: Trinidad. I started looking her up and found another obituary. She died just this past May. She lived in the same town my maternal Grandfather lives in. We had my daughter's first birthday party there in April so I was in town one month before she died. It makes me sad to think of it. She was just across town while we were celebrating the birth of a great-granddaughter she didn't even know existed. A granddaughter of her deceased son. I wish I could have taken my daughter there and met her. She was 92 years old and living in a nursing home. I would very much have liked to meet her.
So it seems that the two people on my father's side that I was interested in meeting are dead.
I think I regret not meeting my grandmother more than my father just because I could have met her, whereas I didn't really have the option to meet my father since he died when I was so young.
It all just makes me feel so weird.