Nostalgia

When the Matron was a Wee Miss--as in about five or six years old-- her parents parted ways.   The situation was, uh, unamicable.

For the rest of her childhood, her father was the Dangerous Interloper, the Wayward Unreliable Wanderer, the Evil Influence Waiting to Happen.  Wee Miss saw her father just a handful of times over the following 13 years.  Maybe five visits?  Six?  She can't remember.

She does remember an uncomplicated, continuous narrative about her father -- from her mother --that went something like this:   That man is bad.  Tainted.  Dangerous.  Evil.   Worst mistake I ever made.  

The Matron also remembers her mother telling her, frequently, that she (Young Miss) was "exactly like your father.   Rot.  You look like him, too."     Hitting was not absent from some of these scenes.

Young Miss was an unpleasant handful during her teenage years, so there's that nod of concession toward her mother.  And it turns out?  She does look like her father.  But.

When Young Miss went to college and turned 18, emancipated and all get out, she tracked down Evil Incarnate, otherwise known as her father.  Turns out all she had to do was call her uncle, his brother, and dial.

And Evil Incarnate?   Wept when he saw her.   Turned out to be the steadiest, most loving presence in Young Miss's life until he died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1996. 

Pause the sentiment button, right now.

That man?  Deeply flawed.  Who was more grown-up, the Young Miss or her father? SHE was the one who tracked him down and did the Therapy Speak.  Not him.  Indeed, while Young Miss supplied her father with regular and reliable phone numbers for his other two children, he never made those calls.

Too afraid.

Think you're a flawed parent?

Here are the two pearls of parental wisdom that the Matron's father passed on to her:  1)  if you're going to steal, steal big because if you steal small the penalty isn't worth the risk and 2) never steal from someone with less money than you have.

Okay then.  That's come in handy?

But she remains eternally, incredibly grateful that she forged this relationship.   That she decided to know and eventually love this kind, beautiful man.   Because that last edict - don't steal from someone who has less than you have?  Sort of sums up his crazy logic and life.  He wanted to give.   Felt that giving was North on the moral compass.

The reason he never called his other two children?  The Matron thinks it's because he thought he couldn't give enough.  Not that he didn't love them.