The Tragic End

It has been two-and-a-half years since my last post, and the story has recently taken its most tragic twist.

First I need to add a little to my story below. There was a part that I deliberately left out of one of my entries, because of my fear of confronting the deeper issue behind it. I was afraid that if someone I knew somehow found this blog that my "secret" would be out, and I did not believe that I was equipped to deal with it at the time.

Back in June of 2005, when my father met with my then boyfriend (now husband) on his 25th birthday about his suspicions and "evidence", there was something else my dad brought up. Out of seemingly nowhere he started talking about me being molested as a child. To properly set this up, I WAS molested by my father when I was about 11 or 12 years old (I've spent so many years trying to bury the memory, I can't recall specifically when it happened, only how it happened, where it happened, that my mother was working on the nights it happened, the shirt I was wearing on one of those nights, and what my dad said to me the last night it happened).

My dad put forth three conflicting "theories" about this, presumably to explain it away (I don't know the precise order he presented these in). He tried telling Jon that I was taken to see a psychologist at some point, who determined that I had never been molested. This is not true, as I have absolutely no recollection of having ever seen a therapist as a child (except for once as a teen, with my whole family, but this was my brother's psychologist who had asked the whole family to come in). My mother has even recently confirmed that I was never taken to see a psychologist.

Then he tried to claim that he didn't molest me, but that perhaps my uncle (mom's brother) did while he was living with us. The problem is that at the time the molestation happened, my uncle was not on speaking terms with my mother due to a falling out my mom had had with her siblings a year or two before the molestation (over my great grandfather's estate). So it would have been impossible for him to have been the molester. And while my uncle had lived with us for a short period of time, it was when I was much, much younger.

He also tried to claim that I wet the bed a lot as a child, and he often had to "clean [me] up", suggesting that perhaps I had that confused with being molested. Except that I didn't really have a problem with wetting the bed (confirmed by my mother), and any time I had done something like that, I guarantee you it was my mom that was tending to me and cleaning me and any mess up... not my dad. Besides, I know for a fact that I wasn't wetting the bed at the age of 11 or 12. And even if I had, even my mom wouldn't be the one cleaning me up at that age!

Why he brought this up to Jon, I'm not entirely sure. However, I believe the meth was causing his memory and guilt over molesting me to eat at him, and his delusional brain was trying to somehow "deal" with this. My dad had no way of knowing whether Jon even knew about it, so the fact he brought this up to him shocked me even more. However, a month earlier, on the night I learned my dad had served my mom with divorce papers, I did tell Jon about it. If you'll recall, in my very first post I said "In the course of the conversation, she also said something to me that, as I mentioned before, convinced me that my dad isn't all there, and that these 'notes' my mom supposedly wrote were probably (consciously or not) written by him."

When I was on the phone with my mom that night, she mentioned that during their argument the night before, my dad accused my mother of accusing him of molesting me (he claimed my mom had written about it in some of the "writings" he had supposedly found that she was doing). My mother cried to me on the phone and said "Why would I ever accuse him of doing something like that when it never happened?" (As background, my mom and her sister were repeatedly molested by their step-father as children, and their mother never believed them, so my mom is particularly sensitive to this. So had she known or even suspected about what happened to me, my mother never would have allowed it to go unpunished). When my mom said this, I was speechless. What could I say? I couldn't tell her. It would kill her to learn that, in fact, I had been molested by him as a child. But, at that point, it was obvious to me that something was seriously wrong with my dad, and that it was quite likely that a lot (if not all) of his accusations were as wrong as this particular one. However, I had to tell someone, so after I hung up with my mom, I told Jon the whole story about what my dad had done to me. He was the only person in the world, besides myself and my dad, that knew at that point.

So when my dad brought up these three conflicting theories, out of the blue, to Jon on his birthday, I knew my dad had seriously lost it. This detail of that conversation played a large role in my decision to push away from my dad from that point on. I was not ready to deal with what had happened to me as a child, and I was not ready to be "outted" to my family and the world about it. (I had kept it locked inside all of those years because on the last night my dad said to me "Please don't tell anyone about this. If you do, I could be in big trouble. I promise it will never happen again". I was afraid that if I told, my dad would go to jail, and my mom would struggle to raise me and my brothers. And I also feared that people might not believe me -- particularly his family, who at the time was the only extended family I had, so losing them would have devastated me.) And with my family presently falling apart all around me, and the denial from my dad's family about his meth addiction and the fact that they seemed to be buying some of his stories, I didn't believe I could safely bring this out into the open without causing my whole world to come completely crashing down around me.

But let's begin to fast forward to the present. My last post was in June of 2006. In July of 2006 my niece, Kayla, was born. Strangely, more than a year before her birth, my dad had told Jon that he was going to die in an execution designed to look like a drug deal gone bad in Oakland on the same date Kayla was born. I was there, in the room, for the delivery of my niece and spent the whole day with my brother and his girlfriend, helping them out. So, when my dad came by to visit and meet his granddaughter later that evening, I was still there. And all I could think about was "I wonder if he even realizes that today is the day he was convinced he was going to die" and "How odd of a coincidence is it that his first grandchild was born on that very day... more than a year after he 'predicted' his death".

The divorce proceedings between my parents continued to be a huge mess. And my father continued to do a lot of strange things. He claimed he was no longer using meth. But it was hard to know for sure. In the latter part of 2006 my dad was caught, multiple times, parked down the street from my mom's house in the middle of the night. A couple of the neighbors had seen him either sitting in his car, or out of his car walking towards the house at like 2 or 3 in the morning, on separate occasions. But then, my youngest brother was coming home at 2 am, and came upon my dad in his truck, parked around the corner from my mom's house, and tried to confront him. But my dad sped off. A couple of days later, my brother received a letter from my dad saying that it was "obvious" that my brother was in cahoots with my mom (leading me to believe that he was still delusional, either because he was still on the meth or the meth had left him permanently schizophrenic despite having stopped, as he claimed). Additionally, in this letter, my dad told my brother that he was "disowning" him, and no longer considered him his son.

Eventually the divorce was finalized in 2006. My dad was living up in Napa at this time with a woman he had began dating in early 2006. This woman had two young kids, a boy who was about 7, and a girl who was about 5. My dad quit his job locally and began working at the cabinet shop his girlfriend worked at, and eventually made arrangements with the owner to purchase the store. Things quieted down, more or less. Although once my dad left his former company, he stopped making alimony payments to my mom.

Family holidays and gatherings continued to be somewhat awkward for me. Although, by this time my dad had stopped trying to win me back, and we generally just avoided each other at such functions. On occasion we would say hello to each other, but that was pretty much it. The rest of the time we'd be socializing with different people, often in different rooms. It was far from ideal, but the only other choice I had was to not see my family anymore. And since that was far worse than the awkwardness, I learned to deal with it a few times a year.

In August of 2008, Jon and I got married. I did not invite my dad. Two weeks before the wedding I called my aunt to confirm whether she was coming to the wedding, since we had not received her RSVP. Sadly, she used that phone call as an opportunity to bring up my dad and the molestation. Apparently my dad had made some comments about it to the rest of the family as part of his meth-induced ramblings in 2005. The family chose to mostly dismiss it, assuming it was more "crazy talk". But it stuck with my aunt, who had been sexually abused herself as a child. My aunt put me on the spot asking about it, and then tried to start convincing me that I shouldn't cut my dad out of my life, and that when I had kids my dad should get to see them. I was pretty much speechless throughout the conversation since I had been completely blindsided. Here I was two weeks from my wedding, with all the last minute details on my mind, and suddenly I'm forced to think about some very painful and secret things. What was I supposed to say? I feebly attempted to defend myself, but it was no use. I was a mess for the rest of the evening, even after I hung up with my aunt. But, I pushed it out of my mind as quickly as I could and went about enjoying my wedding.

Then, a little more than two months later, I received a phone call at about 7 am on a Friday morning, just as I was heading out the door for work. It was my grandfather. The police had come to their door just a few hours earlier and informed them that my father had committed suicide the night before in his home in Napa. The night he died was October 23, 2008 -- which would have been my parents 26th wedding anniversary.

At first I thought that he had planned this, and deliberately picked that date. I was half expecting some sort of suicide note to arrive in the mailbox of my mom, or me, or one of my brothers. I knew that my dad had been diagnosed as bipolar in late 2005, and I knew that suicide is tragically quite common amongst those with this disease, and figured he became yet another victim of this.

After a few hours of deep crying and pain unlike anything I had ever experienced, my family converged upon my grandparent's house to be together and talk. I don't think anyone really knew what to do, and we were all in a huge state of shock. We had also just recently learned that the police had been at the house when he died. But at the time, it was not clear why. Things were getting stranger, and I could only imagine what had been going on.

As I was preparing to leave my grandfather's a few hours later, two of my aunt's approached me and asked me to meet them at one of their homes in a couple of hours. They said they needed to talk to me privately. The whole ride over I was anxiously trying to figure out what this could be about. But I only had one thought, and I didn't dare speak it, and was trying hard not to even think it.

When we got to my aunt's house, my dad's sister began telling me that they knew why the police were there when my dad died. Apparently they knew all morning long, but wanted to talk to me first. At this point I knew exactly where this was going.

My aunt began telling me how just a few days prior my dad's girlfriend had noticed her daughter pulling out her eyelashes. She took her to the doctor who determined that there was nothing physically wrong with her, but referred her to see a child psychologist. While seeing the psychologist, the little girl admitted that my dad had molested her. (Before my aunt could even get the word out I stopped her and began sobbing uncontrollably -- I couldn't bear to hear it, and a part of me started feeling immediately guilty and remorseful for having held my secret.) My dad's girlfriend attempted to get my dad to confess, but he would only deny it and say "I would never hurt her!"

Later that evening the police arrived at my dad's home to "talk to him". They knocked on the door and announced themselves, but my dad refused to come to the door. At some point they heard a gunshot go off. Not knowing whether my dad was in the house alone or not, they called in the SWAT team and a hostage negotiator (or perhaps they were already there -- that part wasn't clear). For nearly two hours they attempted to make contact with my dad and evacuated the surrounding neighbors. Eventually one of the officers peered in through a bathroom window and saw a body slumped over against a wall. At this point, they entered the house and found my dad dead, of a gunshot to the heart, in the back bathroom. There was no one else inside the house.

At this point I admitted to my aunts that my dad had molested me too, and told them everything. They both said that they had suspected, based on the things my dad had said a few years earlier, and thought it made a lot of sense that I had estranged myself from him, given that. But they also tried really hard to make me believe that what happened to this other little girl, and what happened with my dad was not my fault. At first it was hard to accept. I couldn't help but think that had I told perhaps all of this would have been avoided. But at the same time, I didn't tell because I was afraid nobody in the family would believe me, and that my mom would be all alone to raise me and my brothers (this all happened right after we stopped talking to my mom's family, making it even scarier for me), and that it was just "easier" for me to live with it rather than let it destroy everyone else. And, over time, this just became normal to me. And it would have been even harder to have come out with it many years later. I just hated (and still hate) that it had to take this for the truth to finally be out.

Two days later, I told my mom. It was awful. I was so scared to tell her and how she'd react. But I knew I had to, because she was likely to find out somehow -- probably when someone else slipped up and said something. And I didn't feel right lying to her about why my dad died (as it was she was convinced he did it on their anniversary to get to her). I went to her sister first for support, and confessed everything. I knew that since both she and my mother had been molested by their step father when they were children that she'd understand. After letting it all out to her, we went to my mom's and I told her everything. I can still hear the wail that erupted from my mom in the back of my mind whenever I think about it. I hated that I had just shattered her world into a million tiny pieces.

Not long after that I had to tell my brothers. My youngest brother was the "easiest", considering his estranged and damaged relationship with my dad. But telling my middle brother (who had been constantly asking if we had heard anything more as to why the police were at my dad's house) was incredibly hard too. I was afraid that he wouldn't believe me. He and my dad had remained close, and my brother looked up to our dad. How would he handle the news that our dad was a bigger monster than he realized? Fortunately he accepted it, and didn't hold it against me or accuse me of lying (my two biggest fears). I know it was hard for him though, and I wish I could take it all back. I wish I could take it all back from everyone. I wish it were still so that I was the only one who had to live with this knowledge. While it was a relief to get it out in the open, and see that my family didn't abandon me and didn't call me a liar, I still hate that any of them ever had to know.

In the days and weeks and months that followed, the burden of settling and sorting through my dad's estate got dropped on my shoulders. This meant having to sort through a lot of my dad's stuff. He had a storage shed full of a lot of things from when my parents were divorcing. There were some boxes of things from the house that my dad got, many of which had never been opened. And then there were the boxes of papers and files and "evidence" from that horrible time just a few years earlier.

I know I shouldn't have, but I found myself looking at everything -- reading every "rubbing", looking through every print out, trying to find answers in the insanity. In there I found evidence that my dad had placed a GPS tracking device on my mom's vehicle for a few months in late 2005, and had been recording everywhere she went. I found a cassette tape that had recorded phone calls between my mom and various people. I found more rubbings with awful, horrible, perverted and sickening things written. Things about me, and what happened to me, even. I found many of my mom's old flower business documents, and a calendar from 1982 (the year my parents married), and the family phone book, and the divorce papers from my biological parent's divorce, among many other things. Many of these things had rubbings done inside. I went to work cleaning up the things I thought needed to be returned to my mom (there was no way she needed to see the things my dad wrote in there), erasing things, tearing out pages. Eventually I had a large stack of my dad's insanity piled up before me. Then I went to work shredding it all. My dad was dead. The nightmare was over and I wanted it all to just be gone. Nobody else needed to relive it. It was bad enough that I had.

The funeral was difficult. The pastor said a lot of nice things, and people talked about all the good things they remembered about my dad. Many of the people there didn't know why he died, or who he really was. I cringed and ached every time the pastor said something that didn't jive with my experience and knowledge of my dad. But I knew that this funeral wasn't for me. I was just there because it was the right thing to do. At the reception afterward, many people approached me and gave their condolences, and said they couldn't imagine how deeply I must be hurting. No... they couldn't. But I just smiled as they shared stories about my dad, and hoped that at least they were finding their peace.