When I think of the relationship between my father and myself I often think of how he reviled and rejected me after he initiated a five year incest relationship with me starting with my first rape at his hands when I was thirteen years of age. After I ran away from home when I was eighteen he disowned me and I didn\u2019t see him for a couple years. During the next several decades the few times I did see him he called me \u201cno good\u201d and \u201cunclean\u201d, usually in front of other family members or friends. He delighted in humiliating me as if I were foul and uncouth. As Father\u2019s Day or his birthday approached I would buy him a card and a gift, then phone him to say I wanted to see him. He always said the same thing, \u201cWe have a ham in the oven.\u201d He never explained what that mean but I always knew the main thing it referred to was that I was not welcome. One year at Christmas time all of my siblings called to tell me about the large check they had received from him. Since mine hadn\u2019t shown up, in my naivet\u00e9, I phoned him to tell him mine must have been lost in the mail. I\u2019m sure he delighted in telling me that no such check had ever been sent me. I didn\u2019t mind the lack of funds; I was devastated at the rejection.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d like to share below an excerpt from my memoir, I Never Heard A Robin Sing, <\/em>available on amazon.com in Kindle version. I was in my mid-thirties at the time and shows how something had changed in our relationship, at least on his part. Except for a horrifying nightmare I\u2019d had as a thirteen year old, one where someone was on top of me and, like a steamroller, was terminating my innocence and extinguishing my life as I knew it, I had no memory of an incest relationship, all knowledge shrouded in periodic amnesia.\u00a0 It was something that would dramatically change when I got in to recovery in my mid-forties and experienced several sessions with a hypnotist-therapist.<\/p>\n ______________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n “I’m going to be in town for a few days and would like to have dinner with you.”<\/p>\n Dad’s voice caught me by surprise.\u00a0 He and Vivian had moved to a desert town four hours north and he periodically came to LA on business.\u00a0 What did he want with me?<\/p>\n I was both exhilarated and apprehensive as I donned a white silk blouse and black velveteen slacks.\u00a0 I applied makeup with care and made sure my shoulder-length hairdo was perfect.\u00a0 How different this was from the time many years earlier when I awaited his arrival looking ugly.\u00a0 This time, I needed all the confidence I could muster if I wanted to survive an evening with Dad.<\/p>\n We dined at a restaurant of casual elegance.\u00a0 Its choice reflected a side of Dad I’d never seen.\u00a0 He was mellow and in a confidential mood as he drank brandy.\u00a0 Lines of aging crept about his throat and eyes and his jaw line and neck had thickened with the passage of time.\u00a0 Life’s bitterness had creased his mouth and even the startling blue of his eyes had aged, a pale shadow of its former vivid color, as if it had gradually faded with each painful encounter in life.\u00a0 He commented that at times he wanted to live in a canyon in the desert and blow up the entrance.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, he was more open than he’d ever been with me and dealt no chastisements.\u00a0 I recalled my pleading phone calls, attempting to discover why he rejected me still.\u00a0 Our last conversation, many months previously, had consisted of an hour of his listing my wrongs, mostly vague and invalid.\u00a0 He said I was no good and had taken two men to the cleaners in divorce settlements.\u00a0 Thinking about it now, and knowing only the reverse was true, I tried to swallow my bitterness, as he began talking of his life.<\/p>\n He told of how he’d loved a woman in his youth.\u00a0 She’d jilted him in favor of another suitor, and on her wedding day, he’d sent her a dozen long stemmed red roses and never seen her again. He loved her still and it had caused scars from which he’d never healed.\u00a0 His eyes had a tormented and far away gaze, as if seeing a picture too agonizing to contemplate.<\/p>\n He talked of Lela (a family friend and an adopted mother to me)<\/em>, saying he loved her deeply, always had.\u00a0 I’d heard from Lela that on Mom’s deathbed, she entreated Lela to hold off marrying the fellow she was contemplating, after her first husband had passed away.\u00a0 She wanted Lela to marry Dad after her death but Lela wanted no part of it.<\/p>\n I listened to Dad’s meandering into his past and wondered what it was leading up to.\u00a0 Afterwards we took a walk as he continued chatting amiably.\u00a0 I felt my former anxiety receding and the constancy of my love flooding out of me.\u00a0 I had never really abandoned my feelings for my father.\u00a0 Now they ebbed and flowed like the waters of a dark raging river, one with dangerous undercurrents.<\/p>\n We returned to his motel room where he poured himself a nightcap and continued talking.\u00a0 Dad had never been much of a listener, wanting always to be the commanding presence that dominated all conversation.<\/p>\n Suddenly, he commented, “I’ll bet people in that restaurant wondered what an old guy like me was doing with a young gal like you.”<\/p>\n My eyes flickered with surprise at the turn in conversation.\u00a0 “I’m sure they all thought it was a father out with his daughter.\u201d\u00a0 My anxiety reappeared as my breath caught.\u00a0 I tore and scrapped at my fingernails, my mind freezing with unknown terrors.<\/p>\n A pause of uncomfortable silence followed.<\/p>\n “A lot of older men have relationships with younger women.”<\/p>\n I squirmed, not liking the direction Dad was taking, glanced at the door, then at my watch, feeling moisture dot my palms.<\/p>\n “I think it’s time I talked to you about the incest relationship I had with you when you were a young girl.”<\/p>\n My heart raced and my insides began trembling as my limbs froze.\u00a0 What was he saying?\u00a0 A door inside my mind flew open and a child began screaming in terror.\u00a0 I slammed it shut, leaning my body against it.<\/p>\n “A lot of fathers and daughters have this kind of relationship.\u00a0 It’s really quite common.”\u00a0 He sipped his brandy slowly, narrowing his eyes, and watching my reaction as if I were a specimen under a microscope.<\/p>\n I stared at him in horror, my body tensing like a watch tightened too strongly, and ready to snap.\u00a0 Why did my jaw ache, screaming with pain?\u00a0 The taste of blood was in my mouth as I grabbed the lining with my teeth.<\/p>\n “It’s done in the Appalachian district all the time,” he finished lamely, his eyes averting my face as he set his brandy down and lit his pipe.\u00a0 His legs crossed and uncrossed.\u00a0 The quiet drilled into the night like the sharp noise of a woodpecker.\u00a0 We might have been discussing the weather.<\/p>\n The rest of the evening is a strange blur, a dark patch unremembered, as if it had happened to someone else who could not recall the ending of the tale.\u00a0 I remember only sobbing helplessly as I drove home, not even knowing where the pain was coming from.\u00a0 For the rest of my life I will suffer torment over what might have happened the rest of that night.<\/p>\n ________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n This memory, like all of the rest with my father, returns again and again to haunt me, especially on Father\u2019s Day. He tried once more to talk to me about our incest relationship, two years before I began recovery. He invited me up to his home and the first night I was there, as he was changing the IV of my stepmother, Vivien who was paralyzed from a stroke, he said, \u201cKiddo, do you remember a few years ago when I tried to talk to you about our incest relationship.\u201d When I nodded in assent he added, \u201cI need to talk to you about it before it\u2019s too late.\u201d My stepmother began screaming in horror, \u201cNo, no! I\u2019ve had to listen to you talk about that for twenty-five years. I don\u2019t want to hear anymore.\u201d My father remained silent and I returned home knowing no more than I had when I arrived. A few weeks later I sent him a birthday card with a heartfelt letter enclosed. In it I spoke of all the wasted years in our relationship and what they might have been. \u201cSo many wasted years, years that can never be recalled or re-lived. So many moments we could have had together that would now be happy memories\u2026\u2026\u2026..\u201d<\/em> \u00a0At the end I wrote, \u201cI hope that we have yet many years to know each other\u2026.\u201d<\/em>He received the letter on May 1, 1985 (he always stamped the date on his letters and it was in his estate) and two weeks later, on Mother\u2019s Day, died of a massive heart attack.<\/p>\n Happy Father\u2019s Day Dad!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n