My husband's father died last night. I write 'father', but the man had abandoned his then wife when my husband was still in utero. He left his first family: pregnant wife and four-year-old son for the woman with whom he'd been having an affair & began a new family with her.
My husband met his father a handful of times in his younger years, but had had no contact with him in decades save for a social media missive my husband chose to ignore some three years ago. Apparently, the father knew he wasn't long for this world and had wanted to make amends.
How does one feel about the loss of a parent, I use the term here loosely, when there was well and truly no connection with that person?
I tried to have a conversation with my husband about the loss, but it devolved into an argument. He mentioned his father's penchant for reacting angrily to seemingly minor infractions and the fact that the man had undergone a multiple bypass surgery when he was still in his thirties as probably being the reason he died. The news of his father's death was third-hand with no cause of death having been given. The man was 73, so, really, his cause of death is just speculation. His 'heart issues' could be a good guess, to be fair. But when hubby pronounced that his father had had Tourrets, I made the mistake of asking if his father had ever been diagnosed (as his older brother had been). 'NO, I'm diagnosing him, OK?!' I said that I wasn't trying to say that the man wasn't a raging ball of stress, as you'd experienced him those handful of times when you were a child, I was just wondering if he'd ever been diagnosed. DON'T ask such things of the newly-bereaved. Although to say that the hubs is 'bereaved' might be a stretch.
Whatever this man was or wasn't, he was not a parent to my husband. And he was not a good husband to his first wife.
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Earthquakes and old friends...
I was en route to my mom's place in the East Bay around 11a when a warning message flashed across my phone's screen: TSUNAMI WARNING...
A progenitor rather than a parent. Which is a loss in itself.
ReplyDeleteThat man had three birth children & one step. I don't know how the others fared.
DeleteHopefully better than your husband. My sympathies to you both. Not an easy time.
DeleteI would imagine the death of a estranged or even disliked parent must produce deep conflict of emotions.
ReplyDeleteYes, I would imagine so. If I pry too much, I get the drawbridge raised on me, if you catch my drift.
DeleteYou probably should give your husband the space to deal with this in his own way. It's probably brought up a bunch of weird feelings that he's not sure what to do with.
ReplyDeleteI was having a similar conversation with my father just yesterday. His wife's ex-husband just passed, and her children had a similar experience with him as your husband had with his father. We were wondering how one processes such a loss. I'm sure anger is involved. And maybe some of that anger is directed at any feelings of loss.
Good luck. I hope your husband is able to work through his emotions with a minimum of pain.
Thank you for your thoughtful words.
DeleteI had two parents, and however unavailable they might have been, they were there physically. I can't imagine how it would feel to know your parent just decided you weren't worth getting to know in any fashion.
The hubs claims he's fine & doesn't really want to talk about it. I have to respect that.