The Tulip Man

The great battles of abandonment

My daughter Anne would often visit me on her days off and bring my granddaughter Sophie. My wife would prepare a plated dinner for four and we'd enjoy the company of our intimate and small family. Anne was a widow to her husband who died of depression. He fell into the spiral of emotion and after two years of fighting his mind, he gave his life and that was the last dinner of five we'd had since then. Anne was a mother and that meant that she had a reputation to hold for Sophie. When Anne needed to let her emotions out and cry she would bring Sophie over and play while she'd lay in my wife's arm for hours at a time sobbing as if it had been the night she lost him. I never thought that after that I'd see my daughter smile again, but somehow she handled the unfortunate as a symbol of hope. Every day she kept fighting was a testimony to his life and the lives of others. As Sophie kept growing it got harder and harder to answer the questions of where daddy was, but Anne would often lose sleep to find the answers, which kept her ahead with preparation. For a while, we'd tell Sophie that her father was still an active member of the military, and it wasn't that he'd be gone from time and time, because he was much like a superhero. He was somewhere saving the lives of families and protecting his country from the threats of the world, but it had been a while since he served. As she got older she started to ask to send letters to him so he could remember her, and in them, she would write about how she felt he didn't love her anymore because he never came to visit or that he'd never been there to see her blow out the candles for her birthday party. I worried for Anne she handled too much as a single mother so we often took care of her while taking care of Sophie when he had recently passed. As a father, the last thing I'd ever want was for her heart to be completely broken, and it had been like watching her reverse to youth, unable to take care of herself and completely lose all sense of direction. After a couple of years of pain, Anne found herself again and she found her direction and rhythm. She never completely got over the pain and the silence, but she learned to tame the emotion and embrace the memory of him that grew fond in her heart and her mind. She felt blessed to have loved someone as deeply as she loved him, because that love only happens once in a lifetime, and when love does come around it is never promised to be permanent, but it promises to mark you for the better and the worse. Love's only promise is to make you remember. You remember the sweet taste of a kiss, you remember the rush of freedom, and you reminisce on the burning sensation. Love promises us that we will be affected, and we will go through it, but never come out the same as when we entered. Love is reckless abandon and sweet desperation, but love was not in the present, it was always meant to be in the past. Love is truly made when it is no longer in the room with you. Love is when it is far out of reach and yet your imagination and memory reach so far to touch it just one last time. Yes, it is possible to tame the desperation and bittersweet imagination, but there will never be a person to walk the earth and risk the possibility of forgetting it all. If we were to ever forget, how would we know to cherish it when the next time comes around? If we let go of the pain, how would we learn when it's time to try again? My father being absent for each birthday party I'd still receive notes in the mail with his name on the bottom right corner. Each year he would tell me he received pictures from my mom with my new toys each year. He'd ask me how many friends I had this year, but the more the numbers went up the fewer names I had listed, but that was just about how those things go anyways. I stopped writing back to the letters when I turned fifteen and caught my mom late one night with the same rolled-up parchment paper and envelope in her hands. It had been her all along writing the letters, although she never agreed with what my dad did and what he had become, she never had the heart to admit to me he had truly been gone. I watched my mom sign the letter on the bottom right, sincerely Finley Benetorre (Dad). I never told my mom I knew it was her, and all her best attempts for me to read the letters failed. I knew she worked hard to keep me away from the truth of my abandonment, but to me, it was a harder pill to swallow seeing her face swell and throat choke up hearing that I knew it was her and not Finley. The truth set into my unrealistic expectations and since then I faced the fact that Finley wasn't somewhere writing me letters, he was somewhere with an addiction on the street, and chasing after a high that only a man so lost and alone would need. The only picture I had of my dad was his wedding pictures of him and my mom. He looked happy.. and sober. He looked like a regular businessman in a casual suit and tie, but in his eyes, you could see sparks of passion and admiration. for years I tried to spot the signs of addiction and disassociation, but he was just a happy married man. what happened? My father was addicted to money before he was addicted to drinking and drugs. With a good income and enough money to give him the life he wanted he still wasn't satisfied. The clock ran him into a ditch of loneliness- so much for being a workaholic. The pressure began to suffocate him and since he had no time to fix the problem normally, he self-medicated to pills and boos. I Never blamed my father for being an addict, I just blamed him for not letting his family help him. My mother being the kind and passionate woman she is always put her hand out to help my father. She'd give him chances, push him to his farthest limits, and give him all his strength when he ran out of it. no, my father wasn't a deadbeat - he was just an addict I would think as a justifier to the questions I'd get from the rest of my family and friends in response to his absence. I could hate him- I guess I am entitled to it, but what good would it do me? It wouldn't make him come back or drop the addiction. It wouldn't make him give a long-overdue apology. It would just live with me longer than he would and eventually till I died it would finally give out so much for a grudge.