A childhood long forgotten. He wasnt really present. Sometimes in the back of my memories I find a whisper of him. Him holding up a the fireworks for us. Us giggling and watching the colorful lights stream out. Him teaching me how to ride a bike. Holding on to the big bad wheels as I cycled on. But sometimes memories fail you, they reconstruct. Sometimes you imagine things that never really happened. You imagine things that you would like to happen.

I dont remember him being there much... was the biggest thing I remembered about him. He was always working. Working working working. And when he came home late in the evenings, my brother and I would pretend we were asleep, so that he would come and sit near us and then we can jump up and surprise him. But the closer my memories get to the present, the lesser he is present. The less prominent he becomes.

Funny isnt it? How your relationship with your father will form your relationship with the entire male race for the rest of your life. Sometimes you get unlucky and your father is a great fuck-up. What then? Do you think of the rest of them as fuck-ups as well? Do you go off trying to mess up the lives of every single one you can find? Sometimes you get lucky, and your father is a good man. A good role model, and you can base ideas of a perfect relationship based off that.

What do you do when you have an in-between-father? Like all of us?

The things that I remember most, growing up, was that I barely saw him. When I was 12-13, he would send me for trainings every day, so I saw him then, in between falling asleep under my blanket in the back of the car, and being carted back home after trainings. When I was ~13-15, I would see him on the weekends when I was allowed to go home from boarding school.

When I came back home from 15-18, he was virtually gone. I barely saw him, always claiming he was working late. every.single.fucking.night.

How did I not grow up to resent him? Him being late to anything that I had on. Him not really caring to fulfill the promises he made to me. (I still have a bike that has been waiting to be repaired since 1994) Him not asking about me, not curious about my life at all. Not caring about what I was up to.

It is not easy to keep on believing when you do not trust that he will fulfill his promises. It is not easy to keep trusting, when he shatters the things you hold true. It is not easy to spend a lifetime still with him, when all you can remember is that he didnt really want to spend your childhood with his life. All he ever wanted to do, was to just keep on working. Bring money to the house and all that.

It isnt easy since nothing has changed ever. Fights have come and gone between us. I have even yelled at him, telling him he was not a good father. That he never understood that he needed to take time to get to know us. That I did not care how much money he made for us, that all I ever wanted was just for him to be there.

My father was hospitalized recently. Another countless event of his damaged arteries. Four blockages, two operations later, he contacted a skin disease as well. On his left foot. Leaving him bedridden for more than two weeks.

I came to see him every day. And it wasnt easy. What was there for us to talk about? We had differing views on everything, especially religion. He did not like games. He did not like books. He did not like tv shows and movies. I am not his son. I do not know sports, or care to know them. There was nothing that we could talk about. But I am his daughter, and it is my duty, my blood to be with him. Regardless.

So I read to him, his menu options for the next day. Asked him to choose his food. And after two weeks I got sick and tired of doing that too. Asked him to just read it by himself. Why couldnt he just read it by himself? Lazy?!

To which he answered "At least Ill get to hear your voice"

Maybe finally, he is beginning to realize how much it had hurt to not have him there growing up. To only see him in clouds and pieces. Maybe he has suddenly realized how much it had hurt to have him betray us all. How much his actions were finally impacting and forming my relationship with men. Maybe he realizes how little of us he knows, how few the memories of us he holds.

Maybe he can stop believing that he had always been a good father and realize how much more we had wanted.

I cannot blame him now can I? He followed a fatherly model that is obsolete now. A father with 14 children could not provide much attention. A father with 14 children will only spend his time finding food so that his children may eat. How do you become a close father when that was all that you learned?

My five weeks is up now. He will recover slowly and go back to work now. Things wont change. He will come back at 12, 1, 2 in the morning just like he has been doing for the past 10 years now. Because he cant change. And I cant change. It isnt easy to forgive, but it is easier to understand why some things remain the same.

You wish you could take back words. Shouts, anger. Curses that are like piercing swords into a fathers heart when you tell him that he wasnt there for you. That he wasnt a good father.

Sometimes, and most of the time. I just wish that we could have taken it all back. Gone back to the very beginning, and for things to just work out the way it should. The way it has in so many other families.

He wasnt the perfect father. But I wasnt the perfect daughter either. I guess the only thing you can come to realize, is that we did the best that we could. Maybe he wasnt the best father, but he was the best father he could have been.