this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
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[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 6 points 13 hours ago

I don't have many happy memories of my father growing up. All he knew his entire life was hard work and he leaned into that, because his dad died when he was eleven. I am grateful to him for a few things he did that made a major impact on my life:

  • He and my mom got my eyes fixed when I was four years old, before which I was legally blind.
  • He put the first $1000 I ever saw in my hand to pay a college tuition bill so I wouldn't have to quit.
  • He made sure I had everything I needed growing up in terms of material needs.

But there are a wealth of shitty memories too. He was drunk for most of my childhood and adolescence and verbally abusive. There were times he'd show up to my baseball or soccer practices and games and beer cans would be falling out of his truck. (Never had an adult intervene there, though.)

Most annoyingly, he and my mom have "borrowed" my car for a year to work for DoorDash. They're too old now to get jobs anywhere else and have to survive.

The best thing I can say about him now is that I know he regrets all of it. On the rare occasions I have him over he always has a gift of some sort. It's usually something small, because they're very poor. Last time it was a container of oatmeal. It's his way of saying sorry, because his stoic, 1940's and 1950's upbringing produced a man who doesn't know how to actually say he's sorry.