my father - part 4

ok - so I moved to Melbourne.. and I happily lived here for awhile - I worked two jobs - partied hard etc. After a few months I began to feel... something about what occurred over there. I felt sort of sad that after all the wanting and wondering where my father was, I now knew where he was but couldn't contact him. I felt angry and pissed off with what had occurred and the cold hard light of day also made me wonder if I had somehow caused it.
So I rang him. And he was delighted to hear from me. He pretended like nothing had ever happened (like he does, move on - don't look back brigade) and so I attempted to join him. Marjorie was still in the picture but she wasn't so threatened this time because I was over the other side of the world. Brief conversations continued over the years, very brief I should add. Perhaps a phone call (from me) once every year or two.
And so I met J and fast forward a few years and we had decided to get married - I decide to tell my father - so I send an invitation to them. Silence. Obviously I didn't expect him to come, but I thought that I might hear from him - this is a major part of my life, right? I decided to try and ring him, but Marjorie gate keeped that part of his life and she answered the phone every single time I rang - and would say he wasn't there etc.
So apart from letting him know where I was living (I had his email address), I dropped the contact. This made me feel better, knowing I had done everything I could to keep the contact going - I realised that I had survived perfectly well without my father in my life for most of my life and continued on. That was 2002.
In 2003 - I had my first child and so began the emails (you all know the gushy emails that you send to all your friends/family with hundreds of photos of the most beautiful child that has ever been born?) - so he would be included on those. Nothing special - no personal messages to him, just photos out of courtesy, so I felt comfortable knowing that I was keeping him informed. But I never heard any response.
In 2004 - I had my own little mini breakdown which I may delve into further another time ;) - but as a result I was referred to a magnificent psychologist who worked solidly with me for a number of months and this is where I began to openly grieve for a number of things - and funnily enough my father featured in a lot of this (no surely not, you say?). Towards the end of this time with my Psychologist, I received a letter in the mail from a woman called A who wrote a long letter telling me she wanted to help me and my father reunite. I was like - HUH? Who is this woman and what does she want - my first thought was that somehow Marjorie had set her up to do this... Thankfully it was on a day that I had booked in to see my psychologist and I took the letter to him for advice. I was wary, nervous - who was she? What did she want? He agreed with my reaction and advised me that if I chose to respond, I should do so very carefully. As an aside he also thought I should one day write an autobiography about my kooky family history, and just imagine for a minute what the Psychologist would have seen in his time! Anyway, I thought about it for a while and then responded with a very curt reply basically saying, who are you - what do you want? Oh and what happened to Marjorie?? LOL She sent me a massive package back filled with pages of letters, heaps of photos etc. She answered every one of my numbered questions..
And so slowly I began to thaw and a penpal relationship formed with (what turned out to be) my Dad's new partner. She said he couldn't talk about me without getting upset and felt great sorrow about what occurred, but had no idea on how to express it. 2005 came and the letters - emails - etc still came and then all of a sudden I received a phone call from my father saying, look out - I'm coming over to Australia, can I come and see you? I just about fell of my chair with shock and I didn't quite believe it as he had repeatedly told me when I was over there in 1998 that he would NEVER ever enter Australia again.

But he did come in November 2005, I was heavily pregnant with my second child - and we spent some time together - he was very taken with my oldest son (then 2.5) and seemed to get along well with my partner. And on one afternoon we sat there and he and I had a big talk about what occurred over there. He was shocked by some of the things that occurred to me over there and he did apologise. That same day, his partner took me aside and told me that my father would print out every single photo that I emailed over the years and show them off to everybody. This shocked me because my father has never once replied to any of these, so I had assumed that he didn't even look at them. He brought with him a number of toys and voiced all these plans of how he would set up trusts for his grandchildren. I knew better this time, accepted the gifts but had no real expectations about anything else.

Time passed - communication started off great after he was here. He would ring me every month and talk to me - but I don't think he knew how to relate to me - and I wasn't asking much from him - I was just doing the old shallow chit chat. He rang after the birth of my son - and then on Xmas day.. but over time the calls began to drop off again.

I don't mean to drag this out - but I have one last post to make, and I am oh-so tired. I've been at work today and it's almost 11.30pm. I promise I'll be back to give you the rest - some of you will know the next installment anyway, as it includes a weekend trip to Perth for a wedding for a maternal cousin's wedding - that ended in an emotional reunion with my paternal auntie and grandmother - and writing about that is going to take more than I have right now :).