The Greatest Gift

The most special Christmas gift I ever received as a child was a large, wooden, log-cabin-style dollhouse that my dad built for me, carving each fake log into the side with love. The lift-off roof was similarly designed showing each painstaking detail and the incredible effort that Dad had put into making this beautiful gift for me. I think the whole idea was my mom’s and she definitely helped with furnishing the dollhouse, but I felt very honored by the amount of work my dad put into creating it.

Years later, when I was much older, I came home from school one day to find that he’d taken my old BMX and repainted it, shining up the chrome and tightening all the loose parts. Dad was unpredictable. He would disappear for days, leaving my mom in tears. Then he would be back at home. He was always drinking a beer. I knew my dad wasn’t perfect, but I loved him with the unconditional fervour that young children naturally have for their parents. I was definitely a Daddy’s girl.

After my parents separated, Dad disappeared from my life. My Christmas wish was the same for years. I wished for him to show up. Two weeks after Christmas, on my birthday each year, I would call the latest phone numbers I had, asking my father’s friends and family if they knew where he was. Sometimes I even reached him. He would thank me profusely for phoning him on my birthday. He called me Angel. I loved him. When his second daughter was born to a woman on Vancouver Island, I was jealous that my newborn sister had him in her life. But that didn’t last. He abandoned her too.

When I was thirteen, Dad came to town. I was excited to see him after years apart. We agreed to meet at the Dairy Queen parking lot across from my high school on my lunch break. I grabbed my closest friends, excited for them to meet him. When I arrived, I didn’t see him at first. Then, I saw a car door open in the parking lot and out climbed a naked man, wearing only a red, shiny, speedo bathing suit. It was a hot summer day in Kelowna, but not what I expected the first-time seeing Dad in so long. My cheeks burned hot with embarrassment. I asked him to put on some clothes and thankfully he did. However, that experience began a spiraling cascade of negative feelings towards him.

Broken promises and long absences began to pile up. I realized with shocking clarity what a terrible father he had been. Resentment built inside me for all the times he had been drunk and irrational; the things he had done that had hurt me, my mother, and my little brothers. I stopped phoning him on my birthday. Instead, I became even more resentful because he didn’t call me. All the years I’d spent worrying about him and missing him now turned into years spent judging and hating him.

Nevertheless, I had become adept at handling drunk people. As an exotic dancer in my early 20’s, I was gifted at managing the most wasted customers with firmness and finesse. Later, when I began doing activism work, I was exposed to harm reduction advocates. My experience as the daughter of an alcoholic, my indigenous heritage, and my sex work were not looked down on in the harm reduction community. In fact, they valued my experience. Soon, I found myself working in outreach and transition houses. The majority of the people I worked with were sex workers who faced addiction and mental health challenges.

A few months into working in a transition house for women, I was sitting in a one-on-one appointment with a resident. It was almost Mother’s Day. We had received donations of toys for the moms in our house to give to their children. However, most of the women in the house were estranged from their children. Many of their children had been apprehended by the government. Many were now adults who wouldn’t talk to their mothers. Mother’s Day was probably the saddest day of the year in the transition house. The woman who sat before me was crying. She wanted to send toys to her grandchildren but she didn’t think her daughter would accept them. She wasn’t included in their lives because of her addiction challenges. My heart broke at the shame and pain I saw on this woman’s face. She wasn’t the only one. Our house was full of broken-hearted mothers.  

I made suggestions for her to mend the relationship with her daughter, but she had tried all those things in the past. As we conversed, I began to recognize the behavior of the woman’s daughter. I recognized it because it was exactly how I was treating my father. I didn’t ostracize him outright but I did make myself unavailable and my children didn’t know him. I was doing the same thing to my father that this woman’s daughter was doing to her. Here I was, holding space for someone else’s addicted parent and I couldn’t even do it for my own.

That was a shocking epiphany for me. I had compassion for a multitude of parents with addiction challenges, but I had no compassion for my own parent with addiction challenges. My sudden self-awareness was a jolt to my sense of self. I felt filled with shame for the toxic relationship I had with my father, due to my own selfish actions. I knew, then and there, that I had to change.

I started with changing the way I thought about and interacted with my dad. Whenever feelings of resentment came up, I thought about the compassion I felt for the residents in the transition house. Holding onto that feeling,  I replaced my resentment towards my father with compassion. I also decided that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. I planned a trip to visit Dad and I brought my own beverages. We drank, played cards, laughed, hugged, and had a wonderful visit together.

I accepted my dad like I accepted the people I served. I saw him as a human being whose life was out of his own control. Instead of resenting him, I felt a bit sorry for him. By changing the way I thought about him, I was able to forgive my dad for the mistakes he had made as a father. I was able to love him unconditionally again, like I had as a young child.

One thing that really helped me to mend my relationship with my father was that I stopped taking his actions, or lack thereof, personally. It wasn’t “against me” that he forgot my birthday. It wasn’t “intentionally cruel.” It was a symptom of being fucked-up all the time. I started seeing things from his perspective. For instance, he would neglect phoning me for so long that he would develop feelings of guilt about it. The longer he avoided calling, the worse he felt. The worse he felt, the more fear he felt about phoning me. Eventually, he would convince himself I was better off without him and he wouldn’t call at all.

Another thing that helped is that I stopped being ashamed and embarrassed of him. Instead of being horrified when he told me that his neighbor called the police because he was gardening naked, I thought it was hilarious. When he showed up to a Naked Truth event with a fold-up chair and travel mug of apple cider; I proudly introduced him to all of my friends. Thanks to my new attitude towards him, he had the time of his life.

I also used skills I was acquiring in the harm reduction industry. Instead of pushing Dad out of my life, I developed healthy boundaries with him. For instance, I would pay for him to stay in a hotel rather than stay in my home, when he came to town. I phoned him in the mornings before he got too much of a buzz on, so he’d be sober when we chatted. Similarly, I arranged visits with my children to happen in the mornings. Thankfully Dad was a morning person.

I was fortunate that because of the physical distance between us and my dad’s unfailing pride, having boundaries was a perfect solution for us. However, if healthy boundaries hadn’t worked, I would have been able to let go with love. I would not have harbored ill will towards him, even if I couldn’t have him in my life. It was very freeing to let go of all the toxic emotions about my dad that had plagued me.

Once I’d accepted him again, our relationship flourished. We became very close. I called him regularly and on every special occasion, sending gifts often and never expecting anything in return (although sometimes he surprised me). When my activism efforts got my face or name in the media, I sent him the newspaper clippings. He was very proud of me for my sex worker activism. I realized that he had loved me unconditionally all my life; even when I didn’t unconditionally love him. I’m sincerely grateful that I got over my resentment when I did. We were able to have several years of closeness before he died from lung cancer in 2014.

The healing I experienced in my relationship with my father was life-transforming for me. It changed how I looked at all of my relationships. Instead of having my walls up with everyone, I felt comforted knowing that most people felt exactly like I did; afraid, insecure, rejected, abandoned, insulted. In other words, most people took the actions of others personally. I began to see the fears in other people. Instead of wondering what the person in front of me was thinking about me, I could tell that they were wondering what I thought about them. We are all the center of our own universes until we realize that we are all the center of our own universes.

In other words, it’s not all about me. People are not personally against me. If someone “rejects” me, it’s possible they are going through something that requires their attention. It most likely has nothing to do with me. I can not only forgive a rejection, I can send a blessing to the one who rejected me, that they don’t suffer too much from whatever they are facing. This new perspective has enabled me to feel a deep compassion for my fellow humans and a stronger connection to them.

My father gave me few gifts over the course of my life, including the gift of life. The challenges he faced from alcoholism robbed him of raising all of his wonderful children. I saw the regret and shame in his eyes when I stopped focusing on myself and started focusing on him. Before he died, he apologized for being a terrible father to me and my siblings. He had trouble talking at that point and tears streamed out of his eyes as he strained to get out the words to make amends with me.

“You weren’t a terrible father,” I assured him. “We learned about unconditional love from you. You’ve been a loving, wonderful father.” I meant every word. The greatest gift that Dad gave me in my life wasn’t that dollhouse I loved so much or my first bicycle, or any other physical gift. The greatest gift my father ever gave me was the ability to love unconditionally.  Thank Goddess I received this gift before it was too late to share it with him.

Let unconditional love be the gift you give this year. Maybe it will set you free like it did for me. In the meantime, I love you.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from me and mine to you and yours.

Love Annie

xoxo

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