My dad was the 3rd youngest of about 11 children, not sure how many as some had past away before I was born. He was the spoiled one in the family and this carried over to his adult live. My grandparents did not have a wealth of money, grandfather was in WW2, this had a very negative impact on the family. So my dad, this is his topic..hehe...lived "off" them for most of his live. He met my mother during high school, his younger brother dated her best friend, so "naturally" they started dating.
He had plenty of anger in him and this made it's way in to their relationship. The sad part is that I was born from this anger of him..he (words from my mother many years later) raped her and she had to marry. My mother's parents are very Biblical people and this would have been a major scandal...very sad. God had a plan for me from that day on, this will all be revealed later in the story...
So they got married I was born in 1984... To take the next 5 years in to one paragraph...He was hardly at home, was sleeping around, was very aggressive towards us and my mom just stayed there. I recall one day I shot a sucker arrow towards the TV and all hell broke loose. From that day I had this intense fear of my dad. My brain had to "shut out" a few things, as the 5 years are very patch and blurry. Remember one day after school my mom picking me up early, even though it was my dad's turn, the next moment I'm not allowed to see him and we are off to live with her parents. My whole life was uprooted and she only told me the truth about 20 years later, I will chat about this in the next post.
So I grew up in my Grandparents's house, with my mom. My granddad (oupa in Afrikaans) had plenty of good and bad in him, he also grew up without a dad, so this made the next few years a bit of a rollercoaster ride. My dad moved back to his parents and this was about 300km away from me. This is where the real damage started in my life, unknown to me at that time, again God has used this for the better later on in my life. During this time I would go see my dad every other holiday and maybe once a month over a weekend, depending if he had money and if he wanted to see me. My mom started dating, some oddballs here and there, never truly finding happiness or maybe willing to trust again...who knows?
My holidays with my dad were filled with fun times, going to the beach, adventures in the mountains and camping at random places. Being able to see my cousins was a blessings and at most my only friends there. Sometimes my dad took me with on his dates and then I had to wait outside for him to finish up with what ever happened there, look as a kid I knew nothing of what was happening there... One night I woke up and my dad was gone...just not there, I ran to my grandparents room and they also knew nothing of his whereabouts. He came home just in time fore work, he had gone gambling and drinking. Dare I say he hardly ever paid my mom the child support that he had to, but he always had money for alcohol. My one memory that is engraved in my mind is the one night he was so drunk that I had to pick him up and help him to the room, I was 5 years old or 6, still way to young to be doing this...
My dad then met a lady, got her pregnant and had to marry. O my mom also got married, without saying a word to me, I found out she was engaged a while after it happened. in my mind there was always hope that my mom and dad could get back together again, remember I knew nothing of why they gort divorced. So off to Cape Town I go, not knowing this is his wedding, my mom told me the day before I flew that this is the reason that I am visiting him. Met the lady, she could have been my older sister, perhaps 10 years older than me, I was 10 or 11 then. The whole weekend I was on my own, because they had their honeymoon and obviously I am not welcome there. So fast tracking this whole boiling pot of lies and hurt... The next few visits t them in Cape Town was again fun and not, she never wanted my dad and myself to do things alone, not even going to the beach was allowed. Then the baby came, I started changing her nappies when I use to visit them, she would just cry and I would help them out. I really loved her, even though I did not really understood wat was going on. I remember one holiday I took all my spending money to buy food for the house because there was nothing to eat there. One holiday there I recall my dad being very nervous and he said that my mother had sent the police after him to catch him...wow what a lie, but he was my hero...and I believed him. My visits to him was filled with me pouring drinks for adults, seeing them getting absolutely ridiculously drunk, foul language and inappropriate conversations for kids to be part of.
School holidays are upon us...my friends are excited for me, because I am off to visit my father and I get to go to school half day (9 years old) to catch my flight...get to the airport, no ticket there for me, phone him on the landline, no answer, eventually I get hold of my grandfather he says that we never arranged for me to come visit them and my mom is wrong. By the way...not the first time he did not pitch...I have walked up and down the street waiting for him to pick me up for the holidays then he never shows up, or waiting next to the landline for the weekly call...just no call... Jip that left a bad scar... Ok back to the plane ticket event...we (my mom) gets a phone call from my grandparents to say my dad was sent to jail...they did not tell me this, our pastor had to break the news to me. They did not want to tell me why...so I never knew, until about 15 years later... So for the next almost 5 years we only spoke via letters... I remember the one year he sent me a telegraph for my birthday (for the youngsters reading this and do not understand this term read here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphy )
About two of my closest friends knew about my dad, the day he got out I was overwhelmed with joy. That day I also "lost" my best friend at that time, he decided to end the friendship because of the news. The next year or two was spent communicating with him via phone calls, as he felt it necessary to actually make an effort. He stayed with his one brother at this time, then moved to stay with his sister. This was a bout 900km plus away from me. H was constantly lying to me about what he was doing, must of been shame of not being able to find a job seeing that he had a criminal record now. Crazy thing is up to this point none of that mattered to me...I just wanted to see him and be part of his life and see my hero. Then one day out of the blue I get a phone call from him he is passing through my town on his way to live with his brother, again. He wants to pick me up for the holidays and spend time with me, of course I said yes!!! I had a deep longing in me to see him and have a father in my life. Just one point here, he promised me that he was sober now and stopped drinking completely...mmm yes we will get to this point later...
Hope you are still following my crazy thought patterns here, I am ADHD so try and keep up, the Good news will come I promise.
Ok so off we go to spend a month together for the first time in almost 8 years. The trip there was good we chatted tried to catch up with each others lives, just filling in the blanks that the phone calls and letter could not do. The first night there he was drunk, spoke crudely and almost forgot that I was there. My cousin looked after me that night, he is about 5 years older than me. I am going to summarise this holiday and keep the real "horrible" things out, but the thinks that left scars I have to keep in because these are part of who I am today and they are part of my journey to healing and finding my place in this crazy world. During the holiday the following happened:
He got so drunk one night that he slept in his car, we could not get hold of him anywhere. I couldn't sleep, the next morning we saw his car was there and it was full of empty bottels of beer. He managed to get in the house in the early mornings and trampled over me to get to bed.
He would wrestle play with me, but would really try and hurt me. All this because I did martial arts and I was a South African Champ in my weight division.
Christmas was a special day...mmm...my half sister was there too, she is much younger than me and innocent in all this. He took us to the Christmas tree, loads of gifts there, she opened hers and wow what a surprise he was thoughtful in her gifts. I opened mine, one of the boxes had a gift in, the other one was a brick as a joke. Then we took her to her mom on the farm just outside of town. They got so drunk that they left me to myself outside the house, I managed to phone my cousin and he picked me up and took me for an ice cream. That evening when my dad got home, he walked right pass me, did not even realise that I was home and did not drive back with him. He woke up the next day. To add to my hurt here I was a reborn Christian by that age already and Christmas was a (is) a special day for me.
New Years the neighbours daughter invited me to go to an under 18's beach party with her, her mom said I must go with because she saw I was a bit lonely there. My dad sent me off with sex advice for the night...I was shocked to my core.
My eyes opened to who and what he was...after that holiday I started looking back and realised that he was the cause of plenty of my anger and pain. I refused to see him after that, we spoke on the phone once after that and I called him out on his lies...that did not go down well...I was sick after that. In my final school year we started talking again, this was short lived because now I saw the patterns and recognised the lies as they started. After school I did 2 years of Adventure Ministry. In the first month I realised that I need to sort out this thing with my dad, so I called him. He was drunk when I called, but I had peace in my heart whilst we had our call. The next three months God just created a space for the two of us to talk and not fight once, I did not bring up the past once and we would call each other at least once a week. I then did an outreach in Zimbabwe, one morning a received a phone call from my pastor...my dad had passed away. I was broken to the core!!!!!! I had to take a 3 hour bus to get to the nearest town, then a 1000km bus drive to get to South Africa and then a 2hr flight to get home. The next morning we drove 3hrs to go to the funeral...my mom and step dad spoke to my all the way there about how I am feeling etc... At my cousin's house I asked so how did he die...I thought he had a heart attack because of his smoking and years of drinking...to my shock they then told me that he had committed suicide....
