Father's Day

Since the violent episode between Dad and the girls last Summer, we haven't talked.

He called me when he got back to CA and said "I don't know what the girls told you about what happened back there, but I hope you didn't believe everything they said."

My response, "People call me and I listen, Dad. And I believe them because they want to be believed, even if some corner of my mind knows they are blowing smoke up my ass."

He immediately and very aggressively asked, "Are you saying I'm blowing smoke up your ass?"

I said, "No, that isn't what I said."

"Do you think I'm blowing smoke up your ass?" He asked.

"I don't know. Are you?"

He proceeded to rant for a few minutes, and then said he "didn't need this shit" and hung up. A few days later he left a message on my voicemail that he didn't want anything to do with "you girls" anymore, and to not bother caling him because he had changed his number.

We haven't spoken since.

My feelings about him are ambivalent, to say the least, and I prefer to have him in my life as little as possible. Still, I know that I am still coming to terms with the feelings and effects of Mom dying after 5 years of unremitting silence between us.

So, I decided to make a gesture. I went card shopping. After a great deal of time I found a card the showed a little girl on a man's shoulders. The caption below reads: "Loved the view, Loved you," and then on the inside "Still do."

I'm mailing it out today, before I change my mind.