How do you miss someone who you're supposed to miss, but who was never really there?
Sometimes I will be doing something perfectly normal, like driving down I-5 after work, and I'll just burst into tears. A tiny, random thing will remind me of my now-deceased father; in this case, a sign for a completely unrelated tribe's casino.
He wasn't a very good father. He spent almost all of my childhood addicted to drugs and eventually succumbed to the unfortunate native stereotype of homeless drunkard. All the same, he was my dad; his genes are my genes: my dark hair is his dark hair, my brown eyes are his brown eyes, my skin that tans so deeply if I let it is his own dark, leathery skin. My borderline-unreasonable love of salmon and inherent connection to the earth and all living things, his ancestors gave me those.
I do have some good memories of him, of visiting the reservation, and that one time when I missed my stop coming home on the bus from kindergarden and he came out to look for me. Most of the memories, though, are unpleasant ones: loud parties in the middle of the night when I was trying to sleep, him going to jail, when he was gone and then again, when he was gone for good.
When he came back into my life a few years ago, he was a stranger to me. An awkward, lonely stranger looking for a daughter. Trouble was, I didn't need a father anymore; I'd already grown up and away from one absent one and one horrible replacement. I was an adult woman who really didn't know what to do with this apologetic vagrant at my doorstep. So we had a few visits, he gave me a few trinkets, and he would call me every once in awhile. I made my roommate listen to and delete the messages when they got to piling up so that I didn't have to deal with them. And then...he died. A little over a year ago, he just died alone on the side of the road. Although I knew that he was never going to live into old age, not with how he had destroyed his body, I wasn't expecting this. I wasn't really ready to be friends with the guy but I certainly wasn't ready for him to die.
So now I don't know what to do with any of this.
Sometimes I like to think that he was an anime father. You know (if you're a giant nerd) how in a storyline, the main character (an aspiring pirate or Hunter or other adventurous profession), his father is often absent and off on some quest, and the son respects and is proud of him because he knows that his father is following his dreams. But I don't feel like that. My dad made selfish choices and then he developed addictions that drove him apart from his children. I know that he felt deep sadness about this and that he regretted his choices but I don't want that either. I didn't want him to be sad; I'm not sad about it anymore and it breaks my heart a little to think about how despondent he could have been when he died.
I don't know what to do with his memory. I don't really feel like I lost my father but I don't know how to grieve for this strange person I met a few years ago. I guess I am doing things slowly; I fall apart randomly at bars, on the couch at home, and in the car on I-5 on the way home from work. I guess that's okay for now.
