germany family picture

Wow. Here’s a picture that my sister Donna

gave me this last weekend when we were down Pennsylvania way visiting.These pictures, along with some others that she gave me opened up the flood gates of Memory that I’ve had closed for so long. The guy on the right is my dad. I don’t know how old he was at this time. I appear to be about 9 or 10 years old so he must have been late 20’s early 30’s at the most. My dad was a career military man. My memory of him was jaded by the knowledge that 7 or 8 years after these pictures were taken, my father would leave my mother for a woman he met in Thailand on an R&R from duty in Vietnam. He even went to all the trouble of coming home moving us from Elmira, Ny to Woodbridge Va.with the intention of going back to Thailand to be with this other women. It would have been much better had we just stayed in Elmira as that is where my mother ultimately moved back to and still lives to this day.

 

I don’t want to belabor the point

but his actions would effect the lives of 4 other people (his family) and help set in motion years of depression from which my mother never has fully recovered. As for me. After the move to Woodbridge I decided that I would just go into the Army myself, as I was tired of being uprooted and just figured I might as well start a career in the Army instead of being uprooted all the time. I didn’t know my dads intention to just leave my mother in Woodbridge and take back off to Thailand. So off I went to play Army. Had I fully understood the situation I never would have gone in.My mother however insisted that it would be ok.She told me just to go. I was 17 years old at the time so my dad had to sign for me to get in.

The Little one sitting on my mothers lap

is my brother Mike.It’s sad but true, He and I haven’t said a word to each other in 12 years or so. I don’t think he understood me taking off to go in the Military and leaving mom and 2 kids to fend for themselves. I know for sure like me he was pretty bitter toward my father. My brother Mike has always been a take care of his self kind of guy and probably figures he doesn’t really need family to survive. My mother tells me that he only calls around the holidays. I know for myself I tried to call him a week or so ago to ask him something about a rent situation that mom is in. I left a message on his answering service on his home phone asking him to call me back. I’m still waiting for that call. Oh well, “You can’t choose your relatives.”

The little girl on the left is my

Sister Donna. She has had her fair share of hard knocks in life. She is a survivor of Breast Cancer and has some ailments that would knock out a lesser person. I think Donna is the only one that has fully forgiven our father for what he did. She looks at the good in a lot of situations. I’m getting better at doing that but it’s still a battle that I fight. I just don’t think a father should abandon his kids. It sets in motion circumstances that make life much harder than it has to be. I mean really life is going to throw enough curve balls your way, without having to dodge knuckleballs  from your father. If you know what I mean?

I can’t say that I’m happy with all the twist

and turns my life has taken over the years. There have been many a hard roads.I think I’ve said it in my blog somewhere.”If there is a hard way to do something. I’ve done it.” But as I look back I see that each and every experience has been put there to shape me and make me what I am today. So from that perspective I have to say “Thanks for being a quitter dad” because it sure kept the word “quit” out of my vocabulary. I’m justa saying!

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