Do I Reach Out to My Estranged Father?

Coming out of yoga, he walks beside me, and makes a joke, doesn’t arriving late miss the point? His eyes twinkle while I smile. “Caught me.”

He drives past in the car, for which I stop short before crossing the street. He does not see me, even though he glances out the window, eyes the same watery blue. In another life, they embodied safety to me.

Whole Foods produce aisle, I spot him with such clarity my impulse is to abandon cart and run. But, of course, he’s not there. I haven’t seen or talked to him in years.

My sister ( 5 years older) spoke to our dad’s youngest sister (our aunt) a week ago. My father’s wife, a longtime smoker, has inoperable lung cancer. I can imagine my dad is beside himself. She has been the center of his world for years now. Should we call or get in touch? My sister asks. It’s not such a clear-cut question.

My father’s wife irreparably changed our relationship. The why is too complicated and distressingly simple. After years of fits and starts and complications, when faced with the ultimatum (hers, not ours) of choosing his new wife or daughters, his decision was injuriously instantaneous. Somehow, her toxicity is his oxygen. And our terrible terrible loss.

Courtesy of Erin Ryan Burdette’s iPhone.

Meanwhile, the granddaughter my father will never meet, 13 years old, born Easter Sunday — named after my dad’s mother, Isabel — continues to grow taller and finds her footing. Her curls are my curls are his curls. His Irish skin. Her changeability and vulnerability remind me that the father he was before he became whoever he is now would have adored her. Delight in her burgeoning intellect, hilarious remarks, and infectious mischief.

And in the achingly familiar way that he once recognized my sister and me growing up: from a kind, sweet center, blue eyes that saw us the right way without trying about it. The memory of that feeling — or the absence, rather— feels physical. The wind knocked out of me.

I recognize it is likely better for my daughter than it is for my son, who met my father and remembers him. And doesn’t understand why his grandfather cut off his children and, by extension, his grandchildren.

So, these gray-haired blue-eyed fathers I keep seeing are, as you’ve probably surmised, an amalgam. Innocent eighty-something Dallasite strangers, some of them fathers, certainly, just none of them mine.

After prolific bouts of therapy, I know the drill: when a sighting occurs, avoid derailment. Breathe. I can only control myself, I remind myself, not him. Don’t give him another second.

But today — maybe because I sweat through 27 hatha yoga postures and drip, I don’t know, compassion? Awareness? Exhaustion? — maybe because it is Father’s Day, and I can’t celebrate, I allow myself to think of him.

To remember that he was there at the time that I needed him. When my mother could not be. He made the lunches, the doctor appointments, the corny jokes. He wasn’t perfect, but he was there. Unquestionably.

I didn’t want to choose — but if I had to — I’m lucky I had his unshakable and transparent love when I did.

Do I reach out to him?

The magic eight ball and my therapist say, ‘Not Likely.’ Our track record sucks.

My sister and I tried to connect with my dad and his wife at my oldest aunt’s funeral five years ago, which, let’s say, ended poorly. Tried a couple of years ago with my dad to set up a group call — my sister, dad, his wife, and me — to talk things out or come to some kind of, if not agreement, understanding. For reasons I still don’t get, it never happened.

My dad doesn’t know that my sister and I are aware of his wife’s illness. Our reason for not disclosing this is that, based on past behavior, he might be angry with us now that she is sick.

Honestly, I don’t know why exactly. I can see reasons either way. But I settled on email.

That I hit ‘send’ at 8:15 P.M. hints at my tendency to be stubborn.

Hi Dad,

Thinking of you today. Remembering when you used words like ‘diminishing’ as an adjective — “how diminishing!” to amuse us.

Recently, while going through the garage, I ran across incriminating pictures of you as a coach for my 7th-grade basketball team. Fortunately for you, we both embodied the 70s enough for me to keep them in hiding.

It is from you that my ridiculous sense of humor reigns supreme. That I, too, make my children groan with mock disapproval when I invoke the joker voice or face (or both). I am grateful.

I miss you and I love you and I always will.

Happy Father’s Day.

Love, Eenie (childhood nickname born from how I attempted to pronounce Erin)

Whether I receive a response is immaterial. I believe the only thing I can control is what I do. But over that, I have a choice.

Erin Ryan Burdette is an award-winning freelance writer published in newspapers, magazines, and literary journals. Her full-length play, The Arrangements, was featured in the Kitchen Dog Theater New Works Festival 2019. She used to be an actress who wrote but has slowly morphed into a writer who occasionally acts. Her website is forthcoming.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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