Who is this guy?
Yes, it looks like my dad and dresses like him, but I have never seen this guy.
There isn't one photograph from my childhood with my dad looking this happy with me (or either of my sisters, come to think of it).
Honestly, I don't think I had a civil conversation with my dad until I got married and got a dog. Up until that point, we'd never really had much to talk about other than, "Can you pick me up from work?" and "Is it going to snow today?" and the ever-popular, "Where's Mom?" He was an asshole during my childhood, a figure to fear and a person for whom I held very little respect when I lived in his house. He was never affectionate and always cantankerous, demanding, domineering. Never said I love you, but felt he proved it by being our father. I remember telling M that I always loved my dad, but I never liked him. It has taken a long, L O N G time for me to "like" my dad.
Today, my mother surprised me. It was 7 a.m. and my mother, M, and I were in the kitchen feeding the babies and my mother was laughing, telling stories of my infancy and she mentioned that I, like Sabrina, had a favorite blanket. A pink one with satin trim that shredded over time from my constant handling of it. "I had forgotten about it," she said. "Your father is the one who reminded me about it and the noises you would make when you wanted a bottle." She laughed, amused now that she could recall it, but I was taken aback.
He was the one who remembered?! It was a little mind-blowing. My father never talks about what we were like as babies, as children, hell, as anything. To think he has all these memories of us...I don't know how to feel about that.