Yesterday was my father's funeral up in Prescott. I was feeling sort of bad about not feeling bad. I kept telling myself that I should feel something, after all a man who contributed a large amount of my genetic make-up was dead. That ought to elicit some emotion, right?
Then they showed his memorial video, which featured some adorable pictures of him as a child (one that looked a lot like TCHOTP's youngest son) and the 25 years or so that he was with his second wife. Hmmm.
Conspicuously absent was ANY reference to the time he was married to my mother, and no pictures of his 6 children at all. None. It was like we had magically ceased to exist. I realized that my emotions, or lack thereof, were right on target for the situation.
Now, I can understand leaving me out, it is no secret that I had no love for the guy and his wife knew it. However, I have siblings who maintained a Christmas card and phone call relationship with him, and siblings who actually visited with him on a fairly regular basis. My brothers were very broken up about his passing. They, at the very least, should have been included in there somewhere.
I'm just saying.
Oh, if you are interested, you can see it here. You won't find out what I look like, since I'm nowhere to be found.
Here is a picture of the family back when he was still there. He would be right between my oldest brother and my mom, if I hadn't cut him out of the pic. I'm the littlest, being held by my big sister :-)
UPDATE: This post makes it sound as if I didn't grieve for the man at all. I did, in fact, grieve for my father, I just did it decades ago.
Posted by Vox at January 10, 2007 11:23 AM | personalSo quite a few things stir up in me after reading your post.
1) I'm sorry for your loss. I don't mean the loss now, but the loss you felt once upon a time ago. It makes me sad when people have family members that did something or didn't do something to hurt the relationship that much to the point beyond repair.
2) That really is crappy about the video. Was that something he would have wanted or was it the 2nd wifey poo that would have influenced that? If it were me I would totally call her on it because I would like to know. But that's me. That was really crappy. Especially not to have the kids in there.
3) 6 kids! Wow chicky! I didn't know you had that many sibs and not sure how I missed that. What a fun fact about Vox.
4) You are adorable in that picture! You should have been in baby ads.
1) Thank you, I appreciate that. It did hurt a great deal at the time, since then...not so much.
2) I couldn't have imagined her doing that. I never had anything against her (or for her) and just wouldn't expect a person to do that. Someone suggested that she had no pictures of any of us, as if the my father having had NO pictures of his family would make it better.
3) Catholic, that's what they do :-) As I understand it, the original plan when they got married was to have 12 kids. They got to me and stopped...you can read that many ways ;-)
4) Thanks, Lori, but all babies are pretty darn cute.
The really cute one was this sister (the middle one) who was always just so perfectly turned out. In every picture from childhood, she looks like a little doll. I pretty much always looked like this.
My oldest sister really came into her own in high school - in our Brady bunch she was, most definitely, Marcia.
The youngest of the boys is TCHOTP and, as the story goes, he did not like being taken away from the biscuit he was eating to have this pic taken (for some campaign my dad was in). There are other versions where, cutie though he is, he looks very pouty faced.
We sure all have very high foreheads....
Posted by: Vox at January 11, 2007 06:44 PMMy son, who will be 19 next month, stopped talking to me three and one-half years ago. It's been very, very painful for me to deal with. I tried to call him this past Christmas, but he would have nothing of it.
As best as I can figure, I'm still grieving....
