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2005-06-19 @ 8:30 p.m.
you deserve better Dad


Warning: Diatribe imminent. Not the usual fluffer nutter stuff. If you're feeling all fuzzy and groovy from a nice summer day, you might want to wait for my next entry. I just have to get something off my chest today. Thanks. Signed, the mgmt.

I just got back from the cemetery down the street...the one I like walking around. Its the one where my cousin, who died last week was buried. I called my aunt around 7 to find out where she was buried because the place is huge, so she told me and I was off. The place was really bustling with activity too, I assume, because of Father's Day. So I found my cousin's spot. It was kind of strange. There's no tombstone yet, just a big mound of dead flowers with a few ribbon banners interwoven with the words "Mother" and "Sweetheart". I looked at the tombstone next to hers. It was her younger brother. He had died when he was 19. He had been a private in the army and died in 1967, so I'm assuming he died in the Vietnam War. I never knew that. Next to that was her mother, Joan. I thought that was nice, she was buried with two family members. Her father is also buried in the cemetery but at the other end.

So what did all this make me think about on Father's Day? I guess the fact that I have no idea where my Father's buried. I don't know if he's in a casket or was cremated. I don't know what kind of tombstone he has, if any. I don't even really know how he died. Why? Because his wife never told me.

His wife. So you might wonder why I refer to her as the Filipino Mail Order Whore? Because that's about as nice a name as I can think of for her. And I'm actually being very charitable. It's not like I ever had anything against Filipinos before. But I definitely do now. And it doesn't really fall into a prejudice category. It just falls into the "I've had a really bad experience and now they're evil" category.

And I'm not even like that, since I pretty much give everyone an even shake. And I certainly gave her an even shake when she first came into my Dad's life. Because, you see, my Dad was very lonely. He's like me. Very shy. He tried personal ads and had largely bad experiences. He even had a gay man answer his ad and then sass him out for not giving him a chance to prove his desirability. My Dad was a farmboy from Indiana. He didn't like boys. Even desirable ones.

So he turned to the Mail Order Bride thing. It immediately set off alarms for my mom. She was like, "Oh, they're all out for money. You're Dad is going to get ripped off." And I was very naive. I said, maybe not. I'm sure there's some legitimate ones out there and I want Dad to be happy. I even shot a roll of film of my Dad to send pictures to women in the Philippines (Damn, if only the camera had jammed). My Dad was a cutie, even at 60. Although, ultimately, that didn't matter. Cute....didn't....matter (hear that witty). Why? Because: Bank...Accounts....Mattered. Bottom line.

So my Dad started writing to multiple women and then bought a ticket to go over and meet several of them. Talk about tossing a steak into a tank of pirhanas. He got there and the one he was interested in, didn't quite fit the bill, but her cousin sure did. "Baby". By the end of their first day together, she was professing her love for him and he was so vulnerable, he was like, wow, this cute little 30 year old chick is swooning over me, I must be cute. And then by the end of his week long stay in Bolhols, he had asked her to marry him. He was all excited when he came home, it was like I'm going to get married!! Whee!!

It took almost a year to get her over here, and in the meantime, my Dad, generous guy that he is, supported her entire family. WOW!! They even added a new addition onto their home with my Dad's money. Did I mention that during this time, I had finally, finally, finally had almost saved up enough money to buy a house for myself up in Oregon, and my Dad had promised to help me with the down payment (around $4000), since I had never gotten married (i.e., expense of wedding), but then suddenly, his new-almost wife, said she needed to buy some rice over in the Philippines and needed like, cough, $4000, and could he send it to her. My Dad: Of course, Baby. I wuv you.

My life long dream of owning my own house...Gone. I had lived in it a few months, as a rental, but with no down payment forthcoming, bye bye home ownership.

We'll skip over the next ten years of their marriage where she would fly back and forth to the Philippines 1-2 times a year to visit her boyfriend and my Dad would desperately pine for her back in California. And of course, during this time, my Dad continued to support her mother, father and most of her 9 siblings. Me? His only child? He'd give me $50 on Christmas. Yay!

I still had a good relationship with him though. I loved my Dad. We almost always did things without her. She was usually out buying cosmetics or plotting with all her fellow mail order whores and their various bank account acquisitions.

Unfortunately about 7 years ago, my Dad started showing signs of Alzheimer's Disease. Man! What a coup for a Filipino Mail Order Whore. An old guy with a big bank account who can't remember anything. Yay!! And she took full advantage of the situation. I mean, I don't know this for a fact, but I would bet Guardcat's furry ass, that money transfers started flying from Bank of America to the Philippines almost like immediately. How do I know this? Well, I started getting strange calls from my Dad....

"Ya know, witty. We barely have any money in our bank account. I think we might have to sell something so that I can get my medication." and then the next conversation: "Ya know, witty, our Mercedes just broke down for the 4th time in a month. It cost us $3000 the first time and about $1500 the second time and $750 the third time and $1100 the forth time. I don't know if we can afford this car anymore."

Sound suspicious. Yeah, I thought so too. Sure, car repairs are expensive, but over $6000 worth of work in a single month? Me thinks the Whore was using the car repairs as a way to divert money into some other account and was just parking the Mercedes down the street. Why? Because when my Dad left California, he sold his house for over a half million dollars. His monthly retirement income was almost $4000/month. And now he's so broke, he had to sell something in order to buy his medication??

And the poor guy had Alzheimer's!! Fucking bitch!

The last place they lived before he was spirited off to the Philippines was Roanoke, Virginia area. I went down there 3 times in the 3 years they were there. Once at the beginning of their residency and then twice in the last six months they lived there. I knew something was afoot the last six months, because out of the blue, my Dad called one day, and randomly said, "Oh, we've sold the house, we're moving to the Philippines." And I was like WHAT???????????????????????? I had no warning, whatsoever. Nothing had been said that they had even been considering this and suddenly their house was sold. Naturally I got myself down to Virginia (they had to pay for my ticket since I was broke, as usual).

When I got there wifey-whore came out in the driveway but refused to look at me. My Dad later warned me that "Baby" was feeling ill and would be staying in her bedroom. Truth was, she was staying in a room with a lock, because she knew, that I knew, she was up to no good.

That was perhaps the worst week of my life. My Dad's Alzheimer's had progressed rather significantly and he was in and out of some rather strange behavior. Wifey-whore was leaving the house at the crack of dawn every day, so she didn't have to deal with me and coming home after dark. There was no food in the house. My Dad was subsisting on candy and soda. They kept their bedroom door locked. My mother kept calling repeatedly and wifey-whore would just lift the phone and then hang it up when she heard her voice. I didn't know this til I got home and wondered why she never called (so UNLIKE HER). When I tried to call my Mom, they didn't have any long distance service. I had also tried to call "A" because I was so despondent and I kept getting a weird recording and thought his office was closed. I took my Dad to his bank one day because he wanted to take me out to lunch and we got a huge surprise. He wrote a check for $75 and they said they couldn't cash it. He was startled and then he said to take it out of his savings account. And they said, "What savings account?" It had been closed by someone. He only had $42 in a checking account. His monthly income was over $4000. The money from the sale of the house in California. Hmmm. I wonder WHERE that is? Must have gone towards all those costly Mercedes car repairs. Yeah, that's it!!

So that night, he asked "Baby" and she just played dumb. She wouldn't look at me and then she ran in the bedroom and locked the door. Mean ol' witty. She's messing up my plans!!

Next day, her and my Dad went to a party. I wasn't invited. I didn't want to go anyways. A bunch of fellow Filipino Mail Order Whores and their old dudes. Naw. I'll stay home. So as soon as the Mercedes, which was "miraculously"!!! working that day, disappeared down the driveway, I started ripping that fucking house apart. I'm not normally like that, but hell, my Dad was getting royally screwed and I wanted to find some kind of evidence of wrong doing, so I could nail the wifey-whore. I spent three hours tearing everything apart. The only place I couldn't get into was their bedroom, which is obviously where all the important, damning paperwork was. The only thing I did find was an e-mail where "Baby" had bought her brothers an SUV over in the Philippines for a business. How nice of her! Did I mention my Dad, since he had reneged on the house deal, had said he would happily give me a down payment towards a NEW car when he sold his house in California? Really? A New Car? Really? heh, heh. no. not really. Not after Sticky Paws heard about it. But her brothers in the Philippines sure made out like bandits. A new SUV. How cool.

The last day I was in Roanoke, I got a moving van. My Dad has said, if I wanted anything in the house, it was mine, since they were moving to a foreign country. Did I mention how my Dad's wife convinced him to move there? Ok, my Dad was pretty far along into Alzheimer's and would pretty much believe anything. His wifey, it seems, had told him, that the Virginia Highway Department of Transportation, had tagged their home for demolition. Oh, how terrible, especially since it was only 2 years old. She had told him that they were going to tear it down because they were building a SUPERHIGHWAY right through their yard. I mean RIGHT through their actual yard and they HAD to tear their house down and it was better if they sold it, so that they wouldn't lose any money on it. Did I mention, my Dad lived way the hell out in the middle of the woods up on the side of a steep hillside in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains? As in, no where's near any superhighways? They lived about 15 miles from the nearest town. But could I convince my Dad of this? No. And I tried. I tried to tell him that there was no way that a super highway was going to be built through his yard, but wifey-whore had such a control over him, that he just kept shaking his head in disbelief.

So the night before I left, I did the stupidest thing I've done in my 47 years. I wrote a letter to his wife and told her I knew she was stealing his money. By time I got home, after a 10 hour drive, there were already messages on my answering machine. Screaming messages from my Dad. He was very angry that I had disparaged his wife and accused her of stealing. How utterly shocking and alarming. I left my machine on for the next day or two and he kept calling and yelling and I finally unplugged it. I couldn't stand to hearing him yell at me. He had never yelled at me in my entire life. I was also devastated that he didn't believe me and that he believed her and that he sided with her....some cheap twat from the Philippines. I just couldn't believe it.

I eventually brought "A" into it. He acted as a liaison between us. He called my Dad during one of my appointments, but I was unable to bring myself to talk to him. I was so still hurt that he had taken her side and didn't believe me when the evidence was so overwhelming, so I never talked to him. I did send him a letter of apology and a copy of our favorite picture together, but I'm sure the Mail Order Whore probably intercepted it and ripped it up.

So they moved to the Philippines and I never heard from them again. My cousin in Indiana did get occasional information from them. Not sure why they chose her to communicate through. About 7 months after they got over there, my cousin got a call from the Whore and she wondered if the ****'s family was angry with her. Funny how she didn't call me, huh? At that point she was wanting to have us care for my Dad because it was getting too hard for her. (Awww, poor widdle thing. Cutting into your social life and shopping trips?) She wanted to send him back to the U.S. Nothing ever came of that and then finally about 10 months later, I heard, via my cousin, that my Dad had passed away. I actually didn't hear it from her. My mom told me. She thought I knew and just said it in passing, like "Oh, your Dad died. Do you think my voice sounds funny? I just drank some chocolate milk."

I was very distressed because it was like going through his death twice. Once when he left and then when he actually died. And then when I finally talked to my cousin, I got the real scoop. It appears the last months of my Dad's life were pretty lonely. By then Wifey-Whore had a full time boyfriend, and used to leave my Dad alone for 2-3 days at a time. He had full blown Alzheimer's. He was barely functioning when I saw him. I can't imagine what it was like by then. But first things first. Wifey whore's love life obviously took precedence over my Dad's well being and safety. And I guess they had their own little love nest. How lovely. I wonder who bought it for them. My Dad? Perhaps. Obviously not the money earmarked for your daughter's house. Thanks, Dad.

Naturally, I couldn't get any info out of the Whore, so I had to go through all the legal avenues, like the Philippines consulate. After much rigmarole, I was finally able to get a copy of his death certificate. He died of am embolism. My mom and I always like to speculate, what caused it, like maybe Babykin's boyfriend maybe. kinda, sorta pushed him down some stairs or something, because after all, what a bother to have some old Alzheimer's guy walking around all the time. Why do I wonder about this? Because along with the death certificate came a couple of seemingly misplaced hospital reports from the preceding months. Other visits to the hospital with various injuries conducive to falling, like a dislocated shoulder and bruised arms and broken wrist. Three separate visits. All with different kinds of injuries.

So today, on this Father's Day, when all of those people lucky enough to KNOW where your Dad is to visit and celebrate a life worth celebrating, I can only dimly imagine some cheap headstone under some ratty palm tree somewhere over in the Philippines.


I know one thing....Dad...you deserve better.

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