Day 310 The Perfect Mom Project

It is very hard to concentrate on my husband and children when each day the phone rings with more waste burbling up from the septic tank of my Dads making. Each day has been another new piece of information that confirms what I thought when this all started in November, that my Dad was a self righteous, self centered, self promoting man with no care or concern for the thoughts and feelings of his children. He has left papers denying that he even adopted me. Really…was that necessary? Each day the phone rings and the septic burbles up another load.

 The best thing that has come from this is the opportunity to work with my sisters to make all of this as right as we can. Not everyone is working with us with this intention, but we will not be deterred. Our goal is to honor what my Mom's intentions were even if no one else will. It is time for this mess to be cleaned up so that all of us can move on. As I have sorted through the boxes I received and answered the calls that keep coming in, I have felt as if my Mom was dying all over again. I wonder and worry over her last years of her life. I could have done nothing to change that for her, yet I am sad. As details come out in the last few days, I know my Dad created a maze of deceit. At last with help we may be able to unwind some of it and at least put things right for my Mom.

 I continue to call him Dad in spite of friends telling me not to. For 28 years he was the only father figure in my life and I honored that because that is what my Mom wanted. I can't say that I will be able to keep it up much longer, but for now he is still my Dad. Blood relative or not, he welcomed me into his home when Ashleigh and I had nowhere else to go, he walked me down the aisle when I married Mark, he was the "Papa" to my children and he was my Dad. I did not choose him for that job, my Mom did, which is how it works for every other child in the world, you do not get to pick. So, for now he is Dad to me, not a great Dad or even a very good Dad, but the one I was given and the one that was taken away. So, he can deny it if he wants to, I have evidence that says something different.