Thursday, December 7, 2006

Secret Lives

After my father died I began to learn a lot of things about him that I never knew. I was rooting through his closet one day when I came across a legal divorce form from the state of Pennsylvania, and it had some woman's name on it and my father's name. I began to think that there must be some mistake because my father had only been married to my mother. Upon asking my mother it was in fact true that my father had been divorced before he had met my mother and I had never known about it. He could of had children for all I know, and I might have never known about them.

Upon asking my mother further, he hadn't had children with the woman, but her infidelity had led him to leave the marriage. This was just the tip of the iceberg though in terms of my father's secret lives. Some aspects of his life were not so much secret as he just did not talk about them. One of those such things was from the age of 18-30. I know little about what occurred during twelve years of his life. I do know that his father died when he was 3 and his mother died when he was 18. Upon her death, my father's sister sold the house and my father had no place to go. He went around to friends and stayed with them but after that the story fades and I know little of what took place.

How could my father have not told me about twelve years of his life? When I think about it, did I really know him at all? Twelve years is more than a decade, what the hell did he do for a decade of his life? I wish I had answers, but every time I find an answer a new question pops up.

2 comments:

Ryan said...

Interesting blog you have here.

TaraMetBlog said...

It's always interesting to see what parents do and do not share with their children. Most of my dad's good secrets I learned from my mom and not him, yet it's those stories that have made me closer to him.