Deciding

A few years ago I went through many books relating to death and dementia and wholeness, and wasn't sure that it gave me what I needed.

At one point, I noticed that my reading list had a lot of books by Asian-American authors focused on fraught parental relationships. I really noticed when I got to one title, thought I had already read it, and realized, no, that was a different one.

I also had several books with "daughter" in the title. My bright idea was to read the books by the Asian-American authors, then the books with "daughter" in the titles, and then I would see what thoughts came up.

(If it is not already obvious, many of my feelings about death, dementia, and emotional wounds are strongly related to my daughter-hood.)

Now, if my reading ever followed its scheduled path and I only worked on one list at a time... actually, I don't know if I could even recognize my life. Regardless, other books got interspersed, and it appears that fraught parental relationships are more common than not, not bounded by race and ethnicity.

It is not unusual that you can love someone and they can love you, deeply and sincerely, and yet you can cause each other a lot of pain.

It does not always end the relationships. Often it shouldn't.

When I posted about not being in contact with my father, I did not get any negative comments; people were supportive and that is great. I did want to spend a little more time on that decision process, though, in case anyone else is dealing with doubts.

It was kind of in the the last message I sent: dealing with him is so emotionally hard and draining that it becomes physically stressful. If it were harmful to me but good for him, that might be a reason to do it anyway. Back when we were still trying, there was no sign that it made him any happier or better.

When others have pushed back in the past, the general point is that someday he will die, and I will regret it. 

I use that reasoning myself for a completely different scenario, when I discuss visiting Mom with siblings. They find those visits hard, as so I. It is not her fault, and it is questionable how much good it does her. No, she does not know she is seeing her family. We can give her some extra attention, but it may not make a difference. However, someday she will die, and we don't know if we will get much advance notice. Will we be able to live with it if we haven't seen her?  

I will feel bad about my father's death, but I already feel bad about his life. The biggest reason I don't see him is to spare me additional pain. I could be miscalculating, but I don't think so. 

Life is full of uncertainty and all we can do is the best we can. That should mean doing it with kindness and honesty, and that kindness should not only be directed outward from the self, but include the self.

When I was going over all of this before, it was important to me that I go over things that my parents did for me, and also good memories. 

The part that was horrible with my father was how few good memories I could find. Even when he was not actively causing pain, so much of the time there was this air of oppression. In the time before he left, he would leave at 6 in the morning and might not come back until 9 or 10 at night, implausible when he was working and more so when he was unemployed. 

We knew it was not right, and that he had been having a long term affair was not really a surprise, but it was still easy to accept because it was so much of a relief when he wasn't around. 

It wasn't good for him either; he started a late night drinking habit during this time period, but that was something that only he could change. I can accept that he didn't know how, but not that he wouldn't try, and not that he won't even be honest about it now.

I will add that one of the key things that he did provide was financial support and home maintenance throughout my childhood and adolescence. I don't need someone to do that for me now.

However, having recently dealt with home repairs, and being reminded of how overwhelming they feel, does that relate to him? When my inner voice for work-related issues is so harsh, and job issues devastate me so much, does that go back to him? Because yes, I have a pretty nasty inner critic in general, but it is worse for work-related things.

Some of these very harsh parents in the memoirs nonetheless had a lot of good memories and moments with their children too. That must have helped. Some of those parents are also dead now, which may help in a different way. 

I only know how it is for me, and how I am navigating now. Part of the honesty for me is being able to speak it, and not feel a shame and embarrassment about what I could never control.

Part of my kindness is that I will not hold a grudge against him. I do understand and have empathy for some of the things that led him to be this way. It also includes kindness to me in that I am not doing that to myself.

I don't need an apology to forgive him and move on with my life, but for that life to contain him there would need to be more good in the past or promise of change for the future, that was then carried out, even with slip ups. 

Because having boundaries means knowing that sometimes people will lie, and you do need to evaluate whether the efforts are enough, or sincere, or just ineffective but improving, or all of the range in between. Then you can see if new time is mostly good, or better, or subtly worse.

In my case, there is no trying, so there is nothing to evaluate. I know there are better possibilities, but I accept where we are.

Finally, if anyone is curious about the books...

Fraught parental relationships:

by Asian-American authors:
The Magical Language of Others by E. J. Koh
All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung
Crying In H-Mart by Michelle Zauner
Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir by Eddie Huang
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
(plus there are some I have not gotten to yet, and some YA that kind of relates ...)

not by Asian-American authors:
Will by Will Smith
Diary of a Misfit: A Memoir and a Mystery by Casey Parks

(The best parents read about recently were Michelle Obama's in Becoming.)

Daughter books: (I have not read any of these yet, but I will.)
Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution by Randal Keynes
Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love by Dava Sobel
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent
The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss