I have contemplated the relationship that I had with my father for the majority of my life. He removed himself from my life when I was just 38 years old and I’m 52 now. He walked away from me as I was attending America’s favorite pastime, as both of my little boys played on their separate baseball teams. It was a scorcher of a day, and one of my sons nearly passed out from heat exhaustion. Fast forward to my father, yelling at me and telling me how he disliked my tone of voice. Imagine, I’m nearly 40 years old and walking down the corridor of my childhood, as my father yells at me in front of parents and children at my local baseball field, that I frequent 3 to 4 times a week with my family. In any case, this exit of his, where he said that he would never talk to me ever again, became our end. Our life has been a never ending loop of dysfunction, and I knew one day, the end would happen, and he did me a literal favor by ending my traumatic life with him. I imagine he felt nothing as he left his 38-year-old daughter to explain his exit to a fellow parent, as this man witnessed my father‘s toxic behavior and his ugly nature. It’s painful. What I have gone through is ugly.
The Norris family needs studying, because we were all a study in things that will never make sense. The Norris family is a gold mine in significant trauma that bleeds all over one another. Until I began seeing all of them for the broken souls that they are, I felt broken too. I was never broken. When I my father, abused me, he was broken. I was never broken as I was never told that I was loved, they were broken.
I see the big picture now, because my father helped me escape them as much as Tom did. It was over, because, as much as I told my mother that she needed to finally talk to him and tell him that this behavior was abhorrent, she weakly said no. No. No to our family remaining in touch. No to ever standing up for me. No to staying in my life. A few months later, she would vanish. She and Frank left me.
Every human being has a genetic make up, called DNA. Norris DNA is my DNA and I fought it tooth and nail.
My father and his wonderful stories are forever gone. My father, and a unusual sense of comedic timing is gone forever. My father and his abusive nature toward me is gone forever. My father and the ugly way he has treated me my entire life is gone forever.
Do I miss him? No. Do I have fondness for any moments with him as a child? I used to, but now I only cherish a memory that almost doesn’t seem real any longer. I can remember standing next to him when I was three or four years old, as he drove his Dodge charger around and he would send me inside, to one of his local bars that he frequented, and have me get cigarettes for him out of a cigarette vending machine. I loved standing next to my dad as he drove me around town. I loved working the knobs on that gigantic cigarette vending machine and I felt super important to be doing that by myself as a little person. But do I miss my dad, no I don’t.

Comments