My Father
I was going to write a letter to my father today. I was thinking about him. And then I realized that I write to him every day here. Every word I write here is written to him. I am saying, "See, see what you've done to me? What am I to do with this? Look what you've created? I am supposed to manage this child/man, this man/child who cannot separate the two, yet cannot make the two one? How am I to live? How am I to love when I can allow no one to love me, when every time someone would get close to me I run away, when even when I'm in someone's arms I'm counting the minutes until I can break free again and breathe, only to long at once to be back in the very arms from which I just broke away? I think to be held, father, without hangups would be one of my greatest wishes. When I think of relaxing in someone's arms, my mind gets tired and thinks of rest...not the rest of a days work, but the rest of a life's anxiety. I think about how it looks when people hold one another. I remember holding my children when they were small. I remember how wonderful that was. I remember thinking 'So this is what love is supposed to be like between a father and a son' and I took it in and I relished it and I promised myself never to forget that feeling of pure love, and I promised myself that, if my son never understood another thing, it would be that his father loved him, unconditionally, and would protect him from all evil and would hold him as long as he ever needed to be held. And he never knew that I promised myself that...that I promised him that. But, when he was five, I heard him say to a neighbor, 'My parents love me more than anything else in the world.' And I knew he knew. He never knew that I had never known that love.
And there were the feelings you left me with, Dad. Do you know that when I changed his diapers I would get erections? Did you know that, Dad? Did you know how sleazy I felt? Do you know how I asked myself why...why would any father who loved his son as much as I did get an erection when he was changing a diaper of a kid that was only one year old? I was in the closet then, Dad....your closet...the one you made for me and shoved me into...for life. So I thought, 'well maybe it's because I'm gay. Maybe all gay men get erections when they change their boys' diapers.' But I knew that couldn't be true. There was something wrong with me...something horribly wrong with me. He was never in danger, Dad...not like I was. I wouldn't have done anything to him ever. I would have killed myself before I would have harmed that child in any way. But that emotion...I had no sexual feelings...I was no pedophile...I was not dangerous to children...but there it was. What kind of horrible thing was going on somewhere inside my brain? Was there a part of myself I didn't know?
And then, when he was no longer in diapers, it stopped almost as suddenly as it had started. I no longer had them. I forgot about them. Oh, once in awhile I would remember and feel sleazy and question, but they had stopped. That was the important thing.
And then when my daughter came along I wondered if it would happen again and it didn't. So I wasn't a pedophile, it was the gay thing. It had to be. I was still sleazy. I was sure not all gay men had that problem, but I did, and I had to live with who I was.
And the years passed, and the life got more and more complicated mostly because of you and I got more and more depressed and, well you know the rest. I've told you here often enough. But what you don't know is that you had one more gift to give me. When I was studying about repressed memories, trying to find out if all this was your fault, I read that perpetrators could repress their memories too. They might not even remember having done those horrible things, and I remembered the erections, and I wondered, and I feared, and I panicked. What if I had and I hadn't remembered? What if I had done to him what you had done to me? It had all happened at exactly the same age that I would have been when you...well, you know what you did. He was having some problems. Was it me? Could I have? I could bear having been the victim, but the perpetrator? No...no...never...to my son. No one could ask me to bear that. No one could ask me to go on living if I had done that. No...no.
So I asked him. Do you know what that's like, Dad? Do you know what it's like to ask your grown son if you ever raped him? Do you? Do you know how that makes you feel? What if he had said yes? What then? Would I have said, 'sorry, it wasn't my fault, you see my dad did it to me when I was your age...I couldn't help myself?' Would that have made it all right?
He knew everything by then. I had even told him about the erections and about how I had felt about them. My family knew. They had to know everything. Do you know my kids are the only ones in the family that hate you, dad? They don't think you were a saint at all. They know you for who you really were.
But I still worry, dad. I still worry that one day, when he is 55 like I was, that he will wake up with memories like I did and that his children will learn to hate me the way mine learned to hate you. I don't think so, Dad. I don't think I passed on your legacy. I loved him too much. I still love him too much. But not a day goes by that somewhere in the back of my mind I wonder if there's a repressed memory too horrible to ever bring forth...too horrible to ever look at. I pray to God that there isn't. Oh, please, God, don't let there be. I pray that you would have killed me rather than have let me do such a thing to a tiny, innocent child...but still I wonder, and I know I always will.
Thanks, Dad. Thanks for everything Love, Bobby
And there were the feelings you left me with, Dad. Do you know that when I changed his diapers I would get erections? Did you know that, Dad? Did you know how sleazy I felt? Do you know how I asked myself why...why would any father who loved his son as much as I did get an erection when he was changing a diaper of a kid that was only one year old? I was in the closet then, Dad....your closet...the one you made for me and shoved me into...for life. So I thought, 'well maybe it's because I'm gay. Maybe all gay men get erections when they change their boys' diapers.' But I knew that couldn't be true. There was something wrong with me...something horribly wrong with me. He was never in danger, Dad...not like I was. I wouldn't have done anything to him ever. I would have killed myself before I would have harmed that child in any way. But that emotion...I had no sexual feelings...I was no pedophile...I was not dangerous to children...but there it was. What kind of horrible thing was going on somewhere inside my brain? Was there a part of myself I didn't know?
And then, when he was no longer in diapers, it stopped almost as suddenly as it had started. I no longer had them. I forgot about them. Oh, once in awhile I would remember and feel sleazy and question, but they had stopped. That was the important thing.
And then when my daughter came along I wondered if it would happen again and it didn't. So I wasn't a pedophile, it was the gay thing. It had to be. I was still sleazy. I was sure not all gay men had that problem, but I did, and I had to live with who I was.
And the years passed, and the life got more and more complicated mostly because of you and I got more and more depressed and, well you know the rest. I've told you here often enough. But what you don't know is that you had one more gift to give me. When I was studying about repressed memories, trying to find out if all this was your fault, I read that perpetrators could repress their memories too. They might not even remember having done those horrible things, and I remembered the erections, and I wondered, and I feared, and I panicked. What if I had and I hadn't remembered? What if I had done to him what you had done to me? It had all happened at exactly the same age that I would have been when you...well, you know what you did. He was having some problems. Was it me? Could I have? I could bear having been the victim, but the perpetrator? No...no...never...to my son. No one could ask me to bear that. No one could ask me to go on living if I had done that. No...no.
So I asked him. Do you know what that's like, Dad? Do you know what it's like to ask your grown son if you ever raped him? Do you? Do you know how that makes you feel? What if he had said yes? What then? Would I have said, 'sorry, it wasn't my fault, you see my dad did it to me when I was your age...I couldn't help myself?' Would that have made it all right?
He knew everything by then. I had even told him about the erections and about how I had felt about them. My family knew. They had to know everything. Do you know my kids are the only ones in the family that hate you, dad? They don't think you were a saint at all. They know you for who you really were.
But I still worry, dad. I still worry that one day, when he is 55 like I was, that he will wake up with memories like I did and that his children will learn to hate me the way mine learned to hate you. I don't think so, Dad. I don't think I passed on your legacy. I loved him too much. I still love him too much. But not a day goes by that somewhere in the back of my mind I wonder if there's a repressed memory too horrible to ever bring forth...too horrible to ever look at. I pray to God that there isn't. Oh, please, God, don't let there be. I pray that you would have killed me rather than have let me do such a thing to a tiny, innocent child...but still I wonder, and I know I always will.
Thanks, Dad. Thanks for everything Love, Bobby