He might be a father but he sure ain't a dad

Greetings all -
Before we get to this week's question I wanted to mention something. I've said before that I try to stay current, punk rock-wise, with the help of some great sites on my google reader including punknews.org and absolutepunk.net ...well absolutepunk just added a column/feature they call "Ask A. Punk" where they take in reader questions on all topics and have various punk musicians (some well-known, some less so) answer the questions for them. Getting somone ELSE to answer the questions is a nice twist (not that they had ever heard of me or this site before), and I wish I had thought of it - It sure would save me a lot of typing. Anyway, if you're not already a reader I suggest you check absolutepunk out.

Now on to this week's question...

Dear Ask A Punk =
I’m 28. After a battling an illness my dad is in the hospital now and probably won’t be coming out any time soon, if at all. My mom called me to tell me this since it was unlikely that I would have called her any time soon either… I check in with her every couple of months but that is about it. I moved 600 miles away a few years ago, which was as soon as I could, for plenty of good reasons. I won’t bore you with the cliché’s / horror stories… it is all the usual stuff, times 10. Those reasons don’t disappear just because someone gets sick or is going to die. My brother and other sister have stayed closer to home for their own reasons, some of it just fucked up loyalty. I don’t know. I can’t forgive my parents for my childhood and I don’t think I should have to pretend now just because he’s terminal. I don’t care if he wants to apologize… not that my mother even mentioned that as a remote possibility, but I just mean I’m not even interested in that. Fuck them. What about karma? What about reaping what you’ve sown? Yes, theoretically I could make the time to go. I have a flexible job and my band goes through plenty of down-time for various reasons. My boyfriend even offered to come along, but that’s the LAST thing I would want to subject him to. He’s heard plenty, but he only knows about 25% of what it was like. I just don’t know. I don’t want to go back, but will I regret it if I don’t? That’s what I’m trying to figure out. – Escapee

Dear Escapee
You’re obviously angry and for plenty of good reasons. You’re absolutely right too. Just because someone’s dying, that doesn’t give them any right to expect you at their bedside, not if they’ve spent the past 20 or 30 years treating you like a dog that should be kicked often and repeatedly. …but since you bothered to write in to AAP, I’m guessing that some small part of you feels the urge to do as your mom asked, so let’s talk about that undoubtedly small percentage of your brain that wants to jump in the car and drive the 600 miles back to a previous hell.

My initial response is to tell you to do it. Not because you owe it to the shithead who happens to now be dying, but because you owe it to yourself. You’re smart not to expect an apology, just as your dad shouldn’t be expecting forgiveness, but there are other reasons to go, other people involved in this who might be worthy of your support. What was your mom’s role in all this? Are you as angry with her? Did she actively contribute to the horrors of your childhood or is she guilty of sins of omission? Are you angry at her for things she did, or for things she didn’t do? You probably need to get an adult understanding of what she might have suffered through. She might be worthy of your forgiveness. That sort of understanding might only be able to start after your dad is gone.

There are also your brother and sister to consider, or are you equally angry at them? You said in your letter that they’ve spent their lives closer to home for reasons you can’t begin to fathom. Maybe this would be a good opportunity to re-connect with them, to get a better understanding of their lives, and to support them. Remember: Everyone will be affected differently by your father’s death, no matter how much of a common history you all share.

I’ve been reading a book about brain function and the uses of subliminal suggestion, written by a guy who has spent the past 30 years studying the topic and creating programs that contain subliminal elements. In the book he says that there are three short phrases called the “Forgiveness Set” that he includes in nearly every program he creates – whether someone is trying to quit smoking or combat depression or anything else. The Forgiveness Set is three short declarative sentences:

I forgive myself.
I forgive everyone else.
I am forgiven.

I’ll admit that talk of forgiveness is pretty alien to our general culture and especially to the our specific spit-in-your-eye punk rock culture, but on a deeper level it isn’t about making yourself a doormat for the douchebags of the world. The first sentence is about forgiving yourself… Try to dissect that big seething pile of anger you’ve been keeping alive (and well-fed) for all these years. What underlying percentage of it would you say is some free-form guilt? What memories and scenarios come back to you at 3am that fill you not with anger, but with horror, dread… or shame? How much of all these other feelings and issues have you perhaps mis-classified as “anger?”

Getting back to your very specific question: “I don’t want to go back, but will I regret it if I don’t?” …of course I don’t know for sure. You might drive home and get sucked into a black hole of family dysfunction, but what are the odds of that really? Can you give them a number? fifty-fifty? one-in-ten? You’re an adult now remember – no matter how good the family might be at pushing your buttons, you now have mental resources you didn’t have as a child… It IS now possible to protect yourself even in the belly of the family beast. …and even if it goes as horribly as you fear it might, I still think that two or twenty years from now, you’re more likely to regret NOT going.

Let me know what you decide.
Stay Strong.