One of the big selling points I used on my dad when I was arduously trying to talk him to move down to Georgia, other than the fact that everything made sense, was that with him being somewhat in the Metro Atlanta area, not only could I see him with tremendously more regularly than any member of his family had been able to see him over the last 10+ years, he could now participate in things like holidays, events and milestone occasions, like the Pre-K graduation of his granddaughter.
Yes, I know that in the grand spectrum of things, Pre-K graduations are pretty much important only to the parents of the children ‘graduating’ from preschool, but it’s one of those things where I’ve been to enough children’s things over the last six years to understand and have witnessed all sorts of healthy family dynamics where grandparents often show up to events as such, because it’s what family does – show up.
Because graduation day was kind of hectic on account of an altered schedule and in-laws visiting, I didn’t want to have to wake up at like 5 AM to drive the 40 miles to my dad’s facility to pick him up, and then weather the teeth of Atlanta morning traffic to get back 40 miles, I opted to just hail an Uber for my dad, and bring him to my side of town, and then we could go to graduation, and either I drive him back, or I send him home in another Uber.
We’re adults, and we throw money at obstacles.
I call him at 7 AM, to find out if he’s ready to go, and naturally he doesn’t pick up his phone because communication with my dad is basically a one-way street where he will blow up my phone whenever he wants to ask me a question that I’ve already answered for him at least 15 times previously, but when I need to get in touch with him, he never fucking picks up the phone, and I can usually expect to get a callback in a minute or two, like he’s a fucking ER doctor being paged.
Anyway, when he calls back, I ask him if he’s ready to go, and he says he wants to have breakfast first, which is a fair accommodation, his place has set meal hours, and he’s entitled to get his meals. I tell him to call me when he’s done eating, and I’ll hail an Uber and let him know the make and color of the car, like we’d been doing for rides to church the last few Sundays, and he gives me an affirmative.
20-25 minutes later, I call him back because now I’m sweating the time, because if he doesn’t get into an Uber soon, he’ll definitely already be in morning traffic, but there would be no guarantee that he’d make it to my side of town in time to make it to the graduation, which I would later discover security was following rules to a T, and basically barring anyone who didn’t check in prior to 10 AM, wasn’t getting in.
My dad basically tells me that he doesn’t want to come, that it’s too far, too long of a car ride, and he actually wasn’t planning on coming. Immediately, my mind quips that in one hand, I’m actually pretty relieved that he’s bailing, because this means I won’t have to babysit him all morning and afternoon, and seeing as how I was skirting work for the day, I would have my job to tend to, as well as the want to do certain errands, such as vote and go help mythical wife with another errand.
I don’t make a big deal about his abrupt bailing because of the relief at not having to babysit him, but subsequently, my mind started unpacking the underlying messages of his decision, and as pretty much is the case with everything my dad does to me, it began to aggravate the piss out of me.
I had reminded my dad well in advance of this date, and at no point did he ever express any sort of lack of want to come to my daughter’s graduation. I made him write it down on his white board in his own handwriting, because I believe that even those with deteriorating recollection, if they see things written in their own hand, they’re more apt to be able to recall it. So it’s not like he didn’t know this was coming, and he waited until the eleventh hour and 59th minute to bail on me, which in most cases, wars have been started for less offensive acts.
Additionally is this absolutely hypocritical double-standard he showed by citing his refusal because it’s too far. He’s not wrong, because his facility is probably like 35 miles from my home, and factoring in the fact that there’s always some spot(s) where traffic gets horrific going to or from, it’s a beast of a trip almost every time. But he’s my dad, and I still make the effort to see him at least once a week, even though I know the drive is going to suck.
It always annoys the piss out of me when he asks me to come over during the week, because I simply just can’t make that happen for anything short of an emergency, because of traffic, because of the car situation, and because of the time it takes to deal with his bullshit cuts into the time I can have with my actual children. And yet he asks, whether or not he’s oblivious to the fact that the ask alone is enough to set me off, because on top of it all, he’s in a place where everyone can speak the same language as he can, he’s in a place where they have on-call medical assistance should he need it, and when it comes down to it, these resources are going to be vastly more efficient at placating his needs than I am, 60-80 minutes away. Why he always insists on reaching out to me first, when he’s got resources readily available on-site, I just can’t understand, and it drives me bonkers whenever he does it, and it happens too fucking often.
But him citing time and distance, to me, was rich, and I can’t help but wonder if this was partially retaliation for me refusing to come up after work in the very teeth of Atlanta rush hour because he had an abrupt stomach ache, and wanted me to come help him out, to which I told him I can’t just drop what I’m doing to come up, and why not just call the nurses on site with actual medical qualifications to assess his needs. Like, even if I were to come up, the first thing I’d do is talk to a nurse, why the fuck would he just not skip the wait and try to deal with his own problems with the resources that he has?
Regardless, the only one who really pays the price in this fiasco is my daughter, who doesn’t get to have her Korean grandpa show up to a milestone event. Obviously, a four-year-old doesn’t really notice it, but it means something to me, and although I’m glad I didn’t have to babysit him at all today, I’m still disappointed that he bailed on in this fashion.
Needless to say, it’s about the easiest thing in the world to say that my life’s biggest difficulty, is my dad. It’s not lost on me how much of a shithead and ingrate son I might sound like to some of my zero readers, ranting about all the things he does that drives me bananas, but at the same time, everyone present in my life is probably tired as fuck about hearing about how much he’s overtaking my own life, so getting it out in writing is the next best thing for me to do.
There was a time in which I basically begged my dad to lean on me, because at the time, he was pestering the ever-living shit out of my sister, because she’s older than me, and in the old country, the eldest kid usually eats the most shit from the parents. But she’s a widow with two teenagers and dealing with her own uncertain health issues, so I really wanted to take some pressure off of her. But he would still go to her first, and whenever I’d hear about it second hand, I would feel bad for my sister because she already had a lot of shit going on in her own life, while I had the capacity to help out.
When I finally managed to get my dad to agree to come to Georgia, it only took his health and mental capacity to have degraded way worse, and an impending blizzard of the century, as well as power of attorney, he did say to me finally, that he was going to make me his primary contact. At the time in which he said it, I was glad, because I knew that it was going to be a load off my sister’s plate, but little did I realize the unintentional threat such would inevitably become.
Now I would be flagrantly arrogant if I were to insinuate that everything I’m going through is completely unique, and nobody can understand what I’m going through. Parenting, among other things, taught me that there’s absolutely no symptom, thought process, anxiety, trigger or train of thought that hasn’t been endured by millions before me, and Googling anything will bring back hundreds of results of people who can relate. I’m sure there are countless people out there with dads as toxic as mine is, but the thing is, I don’t know any of these people, and strangers can only bring so much comfort in relating.
