This summer I saw my dad for the first time in 10 years. I invited him to go to my sister’s high school graduation, but she didn’t want him there so he just came to see me instead. My other sister wasn’t excited to see my dad either, but she came to hang out with us and his wife. I waited for my dad to meet my sister and I at the mall after my sister was done working at Sephora. The Sephora at the mall my sister works at is inside the JCPenney. I was window shopping in there for a while until I saw my dad and his wife.
I gave him a hug and told him I was happy to see him. Then his wife hugged me as well. When my sister was done working, my dad hugged her and so did his wife, then my dad’s wife took pictures of us without dad. We left the mall and we drove to a Mexican restaurant in town that I suggested because I knew that my dad liked Mexican food. We ate and we talked, my dad paid for our meals, and I even got to drink a margarita. The last time my dad saw me and my sisters, I was a little girl. I was 12 years old and my sisters were 9 and 7. Now we’re in our 20’s, seeing our dad for the first time in 10 years. After we ate, my dad’s wife asked us if we wanted to spend the night at the hotel where they were staying. We ended up going there to spend the night and spend more time with them.
My sister and I haven’t seen our dad in 10 years and he rarely called or texted us. Eventually he stopped communicating with us all together for no reason. I’ve been wanting to see my dad for years, but my sisters disowned him. They felt abandoned because he stopped communicating with us, even though we were the ones who abandoned him. I missed my dad, and I knew he still loved me and my sisters, he just didn’t know how to show it.
After all these years, it felt like we didn’t have a dad at all. When we finally got to see him, he wasn’t even sorry and he still doesn’t make an effort to communicate with us now. My sister wasn’t excited to see my dad; I guess she just expected more from him. I didn’t expect anything from him. To me, he was the same as always. I was just happy to see him.
His wife was telling us that our dad isn’t perfect and we know that because he is our dad and she knows that because she is married to him. That is true, but he still has no excuse for not trying to communicate with his daughters. I don’t blame my sister for not missing my dad, but I don’t understand why they hated him so much or at least disliked him so much, when he’s done nothing to us. But that was the point, he didn’t make an effort to see us or communicate with us. It was like he forgot all about us, but I know he didn’t.
My parents got divorced when I was 12. We moved from Colorado to Massachusetts to start a new life without my dad. I hated Massachusetts at first. I still miss Colorado and don’t like Massachusetts as much as Colorado. But everything happens for a reason and if I never moved to Massachusetts, then I would have never went to Framingham State University and studied Fashion Design. Colorado doesn’t have colleges with Fashion Design as a major, only Fashion Merchandising. Sometimes things might happen that will change your life, like your parents getting divorced and moving to a new state, but everything happens for a reason and sometimes change is good.
If my parents didn’t divorce then they wouldn’t be happy and my dad might still have the same problems he had before the divorce or worse, he would have died. My dad didn’t realize what he was doing was wrong until my mom, my sisters, and I left him.