Natalie Scott
My dad and I only have one picture together, at least one that I can remember. It was taken when I was only a few weeks old, still a wrinkly, squishy, mostly bald baby. My dad is mostly bald too, as he had just gotten back from the army. He’s still wearing his uniform, and I’m wearing a black and white frilly dress (much to my dismay even then, I’m sure). I’m asleep–totally knocked out, it seems, judging by my mouth that is hanging wide open– and my head is resting against the arm of an old brown recliner. My dad is leaning down, kissing my cheek. Unlike mine, his eyes are half open, as if he’s taking in the sight of me. For the first time, I believe–he was still in South Korea when I was born.
That moment captured on my mother’s camera is the only visual representation of my father and I together that I have. I have an old scrapbook my mother made of her and him together–back when they were a happy, united one–but nothing else with me and him. It’s the only visual proof I have that once, there was tenderness between us. Once, there was nothing but love– none of this resentment and bitterness that I associate with him now. On days when I feel overcome by these aching feelings for him, I will look at this photograph for proof of what once was. My dad loved me, even when it felt like he didn’t, even when I try to convince myself today that he didn’t. It’s easier for us to imagine our abusers as nothing more than loveless and violent, I suppose.
I haven’t seen him since the summer of 2018. I was 13 years old the last time we spoke in person. I’ve spent so much of my time all the years since wondering, desperately, if he loved me. When I look at this picture, I remember that yes, he did love me, and I allow myself to remember moments later in my childhood where he expressed that love. When he took me to the arboretum for the first time and showed me all the spots in it he loved visiting as a boy. When he asked his parents for money so he could drive from Hillsdale to Peoria to come pick me up and spend time with me. When he called me from rehab, whenever he got the chance. When he wrote me letters.
I remember these moments from my childhood, and they remind me that he wasn’t always such a shit dad. He wasn’t always screaming, wasn’t always cursing me out. That feels refreshing to think about, for a moment, and then my feelings turn sour. These moments make me think now, why was he ever those things? If he loved me, really loved me, why did he hurt me so bad? Again and again and again? And if he loved me, why didn’t he fight harder when I pushed him away at 13 years old? If he loved me, why did he stop trying to connect? Why didn’t he try to get me back? Why wasn’t that love enough? If what we feel for someone is love, truly love, shouldn’t that be enough for us to stay? To keep fighting? How can we love someone and be at peace with not seeing them for 7 years? Or not seeing them ever again? Is that possible?
Perhaps the answer to that last question is in the question itself. Maybe we can’t love someone and be at peace with never seeing them again. I know that I’m certainly not at peace with the thought of me never seeing my dad again. I know that’s the reality of our situation, and I’m trying to accept it, but I don’t think I ever fully will. Maybe my dad hasn’t either. Maybe he’s not at peace. On the days where I’m at my peak level of resentment, I hope he isn’t at peace. I hope he hurts just as badly as I do. I hope the grief eats him alive and swallows him whole. I hope he feels just as vulnerable as I did back then.
But not all days are like this. Some days, the hardest days, days like today– I want nothing more than to tell my dad that I love him. That I hope that wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, I hope he’s doing well. I often fantasize about telling my dad these things. I picture the ways in which I could do it. I could get in my car, right now, at any moment, and impulsively drive the 6 hours to Hillsdale. I could sit on his front step and wait for him to come home from work. The second he stepped out of his dingy, silver car I could jump into his arms in an embrace. I could lay at his feet and tell him I’m sorry that it’s been so long, and that I’d like to try and talk things through. I could update him on everything he’s missed over coffee. I could ask him all the questions about him that I never got to before. And maybe, finally, I could get answers.
But these scenarios are just fantasies. I know that. My body knows that. But my brain doesn’t always. My heart– still a child’s heart, a little girl desperate for her father’s love– doesn’t always either. I let my imagination get the best of me in these moments, creating false scenarios of redemption, and when I come back to reality I feel devastated. Because even if I did go through with these fantasies, even if I did try to arrange for us to get to know each other again, I don’t know what he would say.
I don’t know if he would accept me for the person I am. I am an outspoken queer woman, and he was never the kind of man who could tolerate loud people, especially loud women. He always had to be louder, like he was with my mom, and like he was with me. I learned about this ugly pattern of his when I got older, connecting the dots myself when I learned he never would. The thought of trying to reconnect with him just for him to silence me, again, is too much. Too scary. I didn’t understand my father when he was in my life, and now that he’s been out of my life for so long, I have no way of knowing how he’d react to seeing me again. If he’d even want to.
There are so many uncertainties that I have about my dad, and I will never get them answered. I don’t know anything about how my dad feels now. I don’t know if he misses me. I don’t know if he’s sad, or if he’s angry with me for walking away. I don’t know if he’s sober or if he’s taking better care of himself. I don’t know if he’s taken accountability for all his wrongdoings, or if he still believes that my walking away outweighs his wrongdoings. I don’t know how he would react if he were to read this right now. If he would gawk at my calling him an abuser– because I do, to my therapist, to all my friends–if he would say I’ve twisted the story. Made him out to be some cold hearted monster he never was. I didn’t know anything about him then, and I don’t know anything now.
All I know is what happened. Why I chose to stop communicating with him. I replay all the memories in my head when the doubt starts trickling in, the ways he’s hurt me like a mental film to remind myself that I’m not a bad daughter. I just had a bad dad. I replay everything, and when I do, I relive everything too.
Him screaming in my face, telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about. Him spitting on my skin as he yelled. Him throwing my phone when I tried to call for help. Him texting me that my mother raised a little bitch– the last time he ever texted me. Him trying to force me to kiss him, and sit on his lap when I was too old to be doing these things, when I told him I didn’t want to. Him making comments about my physique, sexualizing my child body, his daughter’s body. Him ending up in rehab, telling me he’s gonna get better, and then never getting better. Him lying to everyone in his family after I left, telling them he did nothing wrong. Him harassing my family for years after I left because he could no longer harass me.
These are the memories I have of my father. They’re ugly and sickening, and they’ve overpowered the few good memories I have of him. This is what I associate with him. And yet, still, I often find myself missing him. Still, I grieve for him inevitably. Still, I look at the picture of him and I on my bedside table, hold it close to my chest, and I ache. Still, I look in the mirror to see his almond eyes reflecting back at me, and I tell myself all the things I wish I could tell him.
“I saw a man in the grocery store the other day who looked just like you.”
“I saw a Monte Carlo that looked just like yours.”
“I’m sorry your parents made you feel unloved.”
“Happy Birthday.”
“I’m thinking of you.”
“I’m sorry your brother died, and you never got to make things better with him.”
“I’m sorry your childhood was hard.”
“I love you.”
I repeat this last one several times. I love you. I love you. I love you. I know that he can’t ever hear me. I know that it’s not him I’m looking at in the mirror, obviously. I know that he’s two states away. I know all these things, but still, I say these three words like he really is there looking back at me. I love you. I love you. I love you.
I’m scared that he doesn’t know. How could he know? It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, and we didn’t part on good terms. I told him that I wasn’t going to talk to him anymore or visit him again. And I held to that– I haven’t seen him since. My leaving was the consequence of his actions, of his abuse. I know that. But I left, and it must’ve hurt him, and I have never wanted to hurt him, not truly. I wish I could tell him that leaving him behind was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. I make jokes about the trauma I’ve endured at his hands, and I write poems about how empowered I feel to have rid myself of his abuse. But the wounds are still there, because the love is still there. It makes me sick to my stomach to imagine him not knowing this.
The thought keeps me up at night. Imagining him, not knowing that I still love him, eats at me everyday. I try to cope with this by telling myself that he doesn’t deserve to know, and that if he wanted to know, he would reach out to me. If it was eating at him the same way it eats at me, he would do something about it. Wouldn’t he? And why should I care if it eats at him anyways? Let it eat at him, let it drive him crazy. But I do care. I care so much that it feels agonizing. I care so much that he might be in pain that I sometimes regret breaking contact with him. That I sometimes convince myself that I am a villain, that I am a bad daughter. That if his heart is broken, it’s because of me, and not his own fault.
The truth is, though, that I don’t know anything about how my dad feels now. I don’t know if he’s heartbroken. I don’t know if he’s doing anything better, if he’s still in therapy, still going to AA meetings. I don’t know if he’s taken accountability for any of his wrongdoings, or if he still believes that my walking away outweighs his wrongdoings. I don’t know how he would react if he were to read this right now. If he would gawk at my labeling him an abuser, if he would say I’ve twisted the story, made him out to be someone way worse than he actually was. Here I am again, going through this same cycle of remembering and knowing nothing all at once. I didn’t know anything about what was going through his head then, and I don’t know anything that might be now.
I have no idea what kind of man he is now. Is he a better man? Did it take me leaving him behind for him to want to be a better man? Is this how human beings work? Do we only ever want to change, to be good, when good things walk out of our lives? Was I a good thing in my dad’s life? Or was I– by staying in his grip for so many years, loving him so fiercely despite all those bad things he did to me–holding him back from being a better person?
All of these things I don’t know, these lingering uncertainties that I’ll never get cleared up, haunt me. I’ve spent so much of my formative years searching for the answers, and have come up with nothing. Except for one thing, that I know for certain, that I remind myself of on the nights I can’t sleep:
I know that I have a picture of my dad kissing me on the cheek when I was a baby sitting on my bedside table. I know that I look at this picture in moments when I am seeking comfort. I know that I can find comfort in telling myself that once, there was only love. Not violence. Not degradation. Not questions unanswered, Just love. Just a young father meeting his baby girl for the first time.
My dad loved me.
My dad loved me.
My dad loved me.