What I Learned From Hating My Father

Just before he left for his residency
in New Jersey circa 1966.

I hated my father. Not all of my life, I have to say, I was a bit of a daddy’s girl for a while there. Trying to please him, I often participated in his heavy-handed terms of engagement. Driving to Florida from New Jersey with the entire family in the car, he would have us do math problems. “If the odometer read 25,985 when we left the house and now it reads, 30, 012, how many miles did we travel?” My older brother, Ron would just roll his eyes. Our younger sister, Carolina was too young, she would shrug and continue playing with her doll. Our little brother, Rem Jr, was only a toddler. Besides he could barely hear what was going on since he sat in the way way back. But I would eagerly do the calculations. Pen and paper at the ready, and when I was done, I would shout out the answer. Ron would only participate after I did by correcting me or saying something mean like, “Took you long enough” if I got it right.

From as long as I could remember, my brother and father were at odds. As an adult, I attributed their friction to our abandonment as young children. Our parents had left the three oldest of us in the Philippines while they set up our new home in the United States. Ron was four-years-old, I was three and Carolina was only one. After we were reunited, my brother would continue to mistrusted our father. Because he and I were only 11 months apart, we were always very close. After the year seperation, he acted as my protector. He and I were allies. Our sister was so young, she was watched over and cared for, she was an infant, after all. The youngest of us would be born in the US. He was so much younger, in many ways, he was raised as an only child. But Ron and I, we had to bond. He always had my back. 

One of my favorite pictures of my brother and me.
While he wasn't always nice to me, I thought the
world of him (and I always will.)

So of course, when we came to the US, he still wanted to protect me, but me being the middle child and the oldest daughter, I wanted to make sure our parents never left us again. I took on the role of placating them no matter what. That meant my means-to-an-end was very different from that of my brother’s. As a result, instead of an outward closeness, he showed his love through dominance. As little kids, in his eyes, I had sided with the enemy, our dad. 

That’s the psycho-babble I’ve used to come to terms with our family dynamic. As children, Ron felt betrayed that I would favor our dad. As we got older, the power struggle between father and son worsened. 

Our father was an excellent provider. A little too good. We were spoiled rotten and acted that way toward him (and our mom). Our father was a doctor and worked his way up through the ranks to finally become head of the laboratory. He had a definite “God” complex. And why not? On top of and because of being an MD, he made far more than anyone else I knew. Yet, he rarely spent his earnings on himself. He bought a large house with an in-ground pool and a pool table so that we could entertain our extended family and friends. 

When my brother was still in High School, our dad bought him a brand new Trans Am for no apparent reason. I was such a brat that when I was old enough to drive, I actually complained about inheriting our dad’s Limited Edition Mercury Marquis. My boyfriend at the time reminded me that there were plenty of kids who had to buy their own cars. My dad said "This way if you hit something, I know you’ll survive.“ Hrumph! I folded my arms across my chest and stormed out of the room.

At some point, our father bought a van and later an RV in the hopes we would all take trips together. But as happens even in families who enjoy each other’s company, unlike mine, the kids grow up and don’t want to do anything with their parents, much less travel in a Suped-Up van with shag carpeting and bucket seats. 

Ron spent his life not giving our father his due. In college, he went from pre-med to business. According to Ron, being a doctor was not his dream, but our dad’s dream for him. I personally thought he would have made a great doctor, but no, he claims that’s not something he ever wanted. 

He graduated from business school and tried to find ways to make the money our father seemed to make so easily. It was tough to do. But Ron did find a job with a large brokerage firm. He handled the accounts of several large portfolio clients. A group of brothers had an inheritance that he managed. He literally would go and hand them their “allowance”. The relationship with those men became friendships; one invited my brother and his wife to Vermont to stay at his Inn, the other would call with every little problem associated with his small lawn mower repair business. I thought it was a good gig. 

At the same time, our father was extending his generosity, something he did often, where it wasn’t wanted. He had petitioned for his youngest brother and his family to come to the USA. As had been the case with our mother’s family, they were staying with us for the time being. Thinking he’d want to retire to be a businessman, our father bought a 7-11 for his brother to manage. It didn’t take long for our uncle to realize this isn’t for him. He and his family relocated to California, leaving our father with no one to run the store. Ron stepped in. “I’m doing this shit job to protect our future.” He said to me once after he complained about how much he hated managing minimum wage workers, the stream of drunks and drug addicts particularly in the late and early parts of the day, the thievery, and then there was our dad. He’d bring his friends in acting like a big shot. “Go, take what you want. It’s on the house.” He would say. My brother would grumble that it wasn’t free, but my dad’s generosity overrode Ron’s authority time and again. 

For nearly a year, Ron was struggling with a particular employee. This guy Ron thought of as a friend, turned out to be dealing drugs from the store. My brother fired him as soon as he found out. The guy was indignant. He would show up and make trouble. After a few altercations where police had to get involved, the guy resorted to threats. “I know where your son goes to pre-school.” A note said. And a message on their home answering machine said, “I know where you live.” It was scary. It got scarier. That’s when Ron bought a gun for protection. “You should thank me.” He said. I did. I also said for him to quit. For my dad to get someone else. For my dad to sell the fucking store. 

First day as a dad and he had no idea what
to do. The smile on his face said it all. 

My brother said, no. In some ways it was good, he reassured me, because he could spend more time with his family. Get home at a reasonable hour to play with his then 3-year-old son. Have dinner with them, bragging that his high school sweetheart of a wife was an excellent cook. And he was able to play golf, go skiing and spend time with their friends. He was always a homebody, feeling happier in the town we grew up than working in Manhattan.

I, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to get out of Poughkeepsie. My husband, Peter and I were living in NYC, and I was working my dream job as Associate Editor at Scholastic. I was also 7 months pregnant with our first child. Peter and Ron were not just brother-in-laws, they were good friends. A few weeks prior, Peter had gone snowboarding with Ron and they talked about being dads. The last time I saw him with Anne, Ron had encouraged her to give me some of her pregnancy clothes. Unlike when we were growing up, we now had a very good relationship. As adults we wound up vacationing together, seeing each other on weekends and sharing a lot of our lives together. He still tried to take care of me. He still had my back. 

Then, on December 18, 1994, all that would change. As we learned the course of events, rage welled up inside me. In the early morning hours, Ron had let all of his employees go home. For a short window, he was alone. Our father was first alerted by the fire department that the store was on fire. As our dad, mom and Anne rushed over, they wondered where was Ron? They insisted he must be inside, so the fire department went back in. 

Their biggest fear was realized. The thief or thieves had used Ron's gun to kill him and then set the shop ablaze. There was money missing from the vault. The footage from the security cameras were worthless. Eventually, the 7-11 would revoked the franchise. Our parents lost their oldest son AND the reason he was working there in the first place. 

I found it difficult to be in the same room as my father. I blamed him, in my mind, in my heart and to his fucking face, I blamed him for the death of my brother. 

And he blamed himself, in his mind, in his heart until the day he died. It would be five years after Ron’s murder and still no resolution. Our father was on life support, in a coma, and I continued to hate him. 

While my sister and I said our final good byes, I looked at him and raged. “We only wanted to love you!” I shouted at him.  “Why didn’t you let us love you?” In my mind, my brother wouldn't have agreed to manage the 7-11 if our father had shown him some love. In my state of mind, I believed my brother would still be alive if my father only showed him the approval that Ron so desperately wanted.

On the verge of another Father’s Day, here’s what I learned from hating my dad:

1.) Hating him didn’t make me stronger, hating him made me weaker. By hating him, I thought I was standing up for my brother, but in reality, I was just keeping love away, making sure I couldn’t get hurt again.

2.) He didn’t hate me or my siblings. He loved us so much that he worked hard, made money, and worried constantly about supporting us at the expense of being absent or being distract and irritable when he was home.
3.) He loved us more than he loved himself, which he proved over and again when he earned money to buy us things he thought we needed; when he surrounded us in a home that was welcoming, drawing loved ones around us.
4.) Hating him, didn’t bring my brother back, what it did was remind me of my vulnerability, made me missing Ron that much more.
5.) Something I wouldn’t know until I had kids of my own, nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing is more devastating than losing your child. And I’m so sorry I didn’t understand that at the time. Instead of rejecting my father, I should have been there for him. My brother, his oldest son, killed largely due to a decision he made. How much more heart wrenching could his life be?

I only wish all of the grandkids could
have experienced his love. 

6.) Even though he wasn't the father I wanted, he made a really good grandfather. He was able to show his love to his grandkids, his way of directing his love toward us.

7.) After finally accepting that he loved me, I am reassured daily that he still takes care of me, even from beyond.

 8.) And because I know he is near, I know there is someone watching over us, caring for us and loving us. With that faith, I can be strong, take risks, give fully and live with abandon.
9.) The greatest, most important thing I’ve learned after hating my dad, is how much I love and miss him. That’s a gift in and of itself, and one only I can give myself.
10.) If I could tell anyone who would listen, 
I would say, don’t live in the hate, in the anger, in the resentment, or the regret. Live in the laughter, understanding, empathy and the love.

11.) And after hating my dad, I can fully understand how really hard it is to be a good one. I learned the hard way what truly makes a great parent.

12.) And with that said, I can appreciate how great a dad my husband is. I can't imagine our kids ever having cause to hate him.

Our son need never try to
measure up to expectations.

We make choices: to emigrate to the United States, to leave children behind, to work long hours, to buy a 7-11, to buy a 7-11 for a brother who has not asked for it, to guilt a son into running it…we all make choices. We hope they are the right ones. Our father did not buy that 7-11 in the hopes my brother would be killed. It happened. It could have just as logically happened in the Philippines. 

Choices. We make them all day, every day. After years of hating my dad, me, I'm choosing a different sentiment. On this Father’s Day, I choose to think of him with love and understanding. I could choose to hate him all of my life, but 15 years after his death, I choose love. 

Maverick, Writing, Fear and the Undeniability of Beautiful Days

It’s a beautiful day. I know because I’ve gotten up out of my upholstered chair, out from behind my laptop, and actually stood underneath the front porch of my house. I didn’t go out to enjoy the day, however. No, I’m too busy writing my memoir to spend time outdoors.

I went out to coax our English Setter, Maverick out. For some reason, he fears crossing the threshold of our front door, but he needs to go outside to “do his business”. Unless I drag him out there, he won’t go on his own. Well, no, that’s not true. If I go outside, he’ll follow me, but once I step back inside, in he comes right beside me. He’s too fast for me, ugh!

But I digress. It’s a beautiful day and I know, because I went outside today. I’m not so unlike Maverick. I too have to be coaxed outdoors. Not sure why, it’s lovely out there. Today, in particular, the sky is blue with billowy clouds and the sun is out for all of us to see. Even the air temperature is lovely. I was glad to be able to experience the day, all-be-it briefly.

I say this because I worked on my book all day. Well, most of the day. I have been trying to limit my FB time and the time I spend on emails. I need to be more diligent, but I’m making progress. I didn’t do the laundry, sweep the hall, decide suddenly that I needed to sort my sock drawer.

My concentration paid off. I came up with a rough table of contents. If Peter were to look at it at this stage, he’d say, “Looks the same.” But it’s not. What people (substitute Peter for people) don’t realize, I think, is that books, “even” memoirs, are crafted. It’s not just putting to paper a list of events that occurred. While there is a lot to write, not every detail needs to be included. I’m actually tempted to write “essence” pieces where a stand-alone story will represent an editorial commentary. But I think that wouldn’t suffice. I have a lot to say. To tell one story to encapsulate a broad insight would be cheap and easy. I am not that.

I think readers (again, substitute Peter) think a chronological way of presenting a story is the most effective. I think it depends on what message you’d like to give. If the impact of the book is not at the end of the story, maybe the story shouldn’t be told that way. I think I need to jump around and even put in flashbacks because some pretty powerful realizations come well after the initial action takes place.

Like, it would take me until I was 32 year old before our father very casually would say, “But we didn’t mean to leave you there for a year.” My older brother, younger sister and I literally wheeled around to glare at him. This was the first time he had ever responded to me blaming my shortcoming to my life-long abandonment syndrome. On this day, he explained, “After all these years, you should get over it already. We only planned to leave you in the Philippines for two weeks. Your Lolo Ador wouldn’t bring you to us in the States. We called. Your mom cried. Finally, she said she was coming for you. That’s the only reason your Lolo agreed.” That’s a pretty significant piece of information our parents never shared with us. For me to have known that earlier in life, would surely have saved me several friendships, boyfriends, and some failing grades. By this time, I had been married nearly ten years and this information would have made all the difference in our relationship, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars in psychotherapy. It serves quite an impact as a flashback in the book.

But what to leave in, elaborate on and what to leave out, now, that’s tricky? How much do you slant your story to prove your point? And if you leave out too much, will that border on falsehood? I grapple with this as well.

But my biggest problem, I have to say, is the message. Our family’s story can be told several ways and with very different outcomes. I keep a journal of just the kinds of meanings I’d like the readers to walk away with. You’ve read the book, finished the last line, closed the book and now what? What ‘aha’ moment did you have? What feeling stirred within you? What question about yourself will you now explore?

Every other day, I have a new perspective. I discuss these ideas with Peter. He nods. He thinks I’m saying the same thing over and again. I think I spent the day and have a nuance that’s brand new. He doesn’t see it.

I feel this need to have him understand what I’m trying to say and concur that it’s a good message, a new theme, a genuine outcome knowing the series of events I’m sharing with my readers.

I vacillate between making the story about me, after all it is my memoir, and about our family’s experience. I had asked my friend Caitlyn, a famous and well-respected book editor what she thought of a He said/She said type of book. Trite and hokey, is what I recall her saying. Then, I thought, I’d interview each one of us and from the interviews, using each person’s own words, I’d tell an excerpt of our life through the eyes of my family members. Another day I thought, I would start it as a young girl in the Philippines. Or, I planned, I’d have it read like we were telling stores over drinks in a bar. Recently, I started to write that each chapter would start with an excerpt from Peter’s letters to me while he was in the Peace Corps.

But today, today, I decided to write a storyline that formed organically. And because it took it’s own voice, flowed, and easily went down on “paper” I will go with it. In actuality, I’ve already written the stories. The book is bound and ready sitting right next to me at this very moment. It is written. It’s how I want it to be published, that needs work.

I realized today that it’s been here all along. Kind of like the happiness I feel when I think of where our life had been, how it progressed, and where we are now. Like Maverick, I’m a little wary crossing that threshold. I’m not sure what I’m afraid of or why I’m afraid. But with a little coaxing, I’ll step out into the sunshine. Yesterday, it took me a text to Peter at work. “Tell me you love me and everything will be OK.” He called me right away, “What’s up?” And all was better. Yesterday, Macallan texted me while she was out in Colorado. “I think I got food poisoning. I’m driving back to the ranch from Denver and I’ve had to pull over to throw up and my head hurts and I want my mommado.” Then, nothing. I felt like she was fine, just didn’t have cell service, but I couldn’t be sure until I’d hear from her. The next day she called. Relief washed over me. All was good in the world. And then, just now, my son texted me to say he’d lost his wallet. No sooner had he told me, when a stranger rang our doorbell and presented me my son’s lost billfold. “Thank you!” I said after the man told me he’d found it on the ground at a garage sale. He looked inside for an address and used GPS to find our home. He brought it right over before we could cancel the card. What a nice person! As suddenly as he appeared, he disappeared, before I could thank him properly and give him a reward.

What a day, I can say as I stand in the front door of my life looking out. What a beautiful day!