Current Events > Ask your parents the tough questions before it's too late. (long read)

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My mom and dad were both pretty successful, but they split when I was about 1 year old. Growing up, I never knew the reason. My dad would never talk about it voluntarily and my mom never wanted to speak negatively about him in front of me. My mom would just repeatedly beg me to not start doing drugs and leave it at that, for the most part.

Here and there, my dad would do really weird shit and that was when it really hit me that he still had a drug problem. I can't remember which year it was at this point, but my dad wrote me a check for my birthday and sent it to me in the mail. He spent the money on drugs before I could cash it, though, so the check bounced and I had to pay a $35 fee. I had never tried to cash a bad check before, so in the moment, I was panicking and thinking I was going to go to jail. I called the bank and explained the situation, expecting them to talk about having me arrested. They said the fee was the only thing that would happen, which was somewhat relieving.

I called my dad to ask what the problem was. He was extremely apologetic and said he would send me a money order to make up for it. A few days later, I got an envelope in the mail and there was nothing in it. I was pissed. I called him to tell him that there was nothing in the envelope. He started a self pity thing and I just told him not to send me any more money. At this point, I still never understood why my parents split up, but that event gave me a small idea.

My dad was gravely ill in early to mid 2018. I was at the point where I had mostly grown apart from even having an attachment to him. I would answer the phone when he called and be cordial, but he had gone into a pretty extreme conspiracy theory rabbit hole and I didn't enjoy talking to him any more. I was debating whether I even wanted to go to Alabama to see him. My cousins were telling me that his health was deteriorating pretty quickly, so I decided to go.

I was working a ton on a regular basis and ESPN was having an event at a certain location at my old job. I made sure the network was ready for that and then just started driving from Austin, TX to Pollard, AL to go see him. I think I started the drive at about 10am.

By the time I got to Louisiana, they had moved him to a hospital in Pensacola, FL because he kept voluntarily leaving the hospital in Alabama and one of my cousins needed to be close to him. It wasn't much of a difference for me because I was just driving on I10 any way.

I got to the hospital and saw my dad for the first time in years. He seemed to be in good spirits, but had some serious health issues. I wanted to ask him about the weird stuff he had done and ask all the why questions, but... I just couldn't muster the courage to do it. I had a feeling he wasn't going to live much longer and didn't want him to have to relive any of the bad times.

I have an older half sister that I found out about when I was 17 and she had an even worse relationship with him than I did. She never showed up to the hospital and I don't really blame her after finding out what she went through. We don't really have a relationship with each other at all outside of being friends on Facebook. We're gonna have to fix that at some point.

The day came when we had to decide to put him in hospice care. It was technically my decision since I was the next of kin, but... I didn't want to make it alone, so my cousins and aunts and uncles who were present agreed that we could make the decision as a group. This was fucking hard. Having to accept that my dad was going to die in that moment was tough.

My dad was in hospice care and it was about 9 or 10 at night. My cousins, aunts, and uncles had been at the hospital all day. We sat on a couch in the hotel lobby and just started talking about random things. The mystery of my parents' divorce was heavy on my mind, though. So I figured I would ask them.

They weren't aware that I didn't know the story, but they told me the whole situation. My dad was a plant manager at some construction company in Florida. He decided to give one of my cousins a ride home in the company car, but he was drunk. He hit some lady and put her in a wheelchair. She sued the company for about $2,000,000 in the 80s and he lost his job. That started a downward spiral of doing hard drugs for him.

My granddad had built a house in Pollard, AL and that's where my dad's side of the family grew up. My grandparents brought him back home to pay for him to go through rehab and stuff. He completed rehab, but went back into the same environment and started doing drugs again. So my mom left. I feel like I know enough of the story that I'm not really in need to know exactly how bad my dad got, but... I do wish I had asked my dad about it when I had the chance.

My mom was working for IBM at the time and her boss was aware of everything that was going on. He helped her get a different job with the company in Austin, TX so she could get far away from him. So when I was about 3, my mom drove with me from Pensacola, FL to Austin, TX. Being in the car during this trip is one of my earliest memories.

I'd go visit my dad every now and then, but my mom was never happy about it and I never knew why until that night in the hospital after we put him in hospice care.

So I have some idea of what the deal was with that bad check, but I wish I had taken the time to ask him about it directly and get a detailed explanation about that and many other things.

Can you put the question we should ask into a single sentence?

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It's OK, I was expecting at least a few joke/non-serious posts.

This is just something I think about from time to time and I think it's important.

Damn. It's wild your family was able to keep that from you for so long.

I have a feeling my dad cheated on my mom in the early 2000s cuz they would fight a lot and he'd always be at work. They're good now and happily married but I dunno if I could ever ask about wtf was going on during that time.

PoopPotato posted...

Can you put the question we should ask into a single sentence?

Basically, if you have any questions about your life or such that you need to ask your parents about, do it while they're still alive, because there will come a point where they will no longer be around to answer those questions.

Sucks that you still have attachment to that whole mess. Hope you got some closure out of what your relatives told you, at least.

I'm sorry TC. I hope what you learned was enough to bring you some sort of peace

Guide posted...

Sucks that you still have attachment to that whole mess. Hope you got some closure out of what your relatives told you, at least.

Yeah, I feel like the toughest part of the whole ordeal was not knowing anything about that. My parents were hostile towards each other my whole life and I never knew why until then. The summer before 9th grade, I got viral mengingitis. My dad decided to come to Austin to see me in the hospital and they pretty much had to be in the room together with each other. They started arguing about money while I was laying on the hospital bed, and I just didn't understand why they were so angry at each other even in that moment.

Solar_Crimson posted...

Basically, if you have any questions about your life or such that you need to ask your parents about, do it while they're still alive, because there will come a point where they will no longer be around to answer those questions.

This is always good advice. My parents have already passed on. I don't know the full story on my dad's side but I know all of my moms..

tldr don't drink and drive

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Smol: tee-hee, this will be such a clever post

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The topic title literally says long read, and contains incredibly serious subject matter.

You couldve just ignored the post, but you had to make sure we knew youre not capable of serious discussion.

on topic, thats really tough. Im sure we all have some questions to ask our parents about, even if theyre not as serious as this.

I'm sorry dude, that really blows.
I'm glad that you at least got some type of closure about it, but I doubt that it was enough.

I'm sorry you had to go through all that and I'm glad you got closure.

Someone I think is my dad tried to add me on Facebook a few years ago, like right before the pandemic. Idk much about him besides a $10k insurance check I got when I turned 18. I think he has a separate family from looking at his pics, but I never added, idk if I want to.

I sometimes wonder if parents always have this hoover dam worth of stuff they want to info dump on their kids but usually refrain until prompted or it spills out during an emotional breakdown.

HudGard posted...

I sometimes wonder if parents always have this hoover dam worth of stuff they want to info dump on their kids but usually refrain until prompted or it spills out during an emotional breakdown.

Yeah... I think it's pretty much impossible to know if the kid will be better off knowing or not knowing. My mom chose the latter, and I get it. I don't fault her at all for trying to do what she thought was best in that regard.

Unfortunately too late for me.

i am sorry you had to deal with that kinda situation in that kinda heavy environment. that kinda thing can lead to stress and be trauma inducing even if you didn't know the source at the time, especially as a younger person

Only my mom. Definitely not my dad. I'm scared of him. He can't control his emotions and he'll just give me a panic attack.

Also I read your story tc and glad that you at least got some closure.

That sounds horrible. I am sorry you had to grew up like that, I can understand not asking the hard questions and maybe just accept that we do not always get closure.

My wife went through a similar situation with her dad recently. Lots of similar situations to your upbringing too. He had pancreatic cancer and was only given a few months to live. She spent that time getting answers to a lot of questions about why he was never around during her life. I'm personally of the, "fuck that guy" camp but she grew a better understanding and got a little closure.

That's not how I deal with these types of things, but I can see how lots of folks value it. So, if you do then listen to TC. It seems to help

My mom is a narcissistic sociopath. There is no answer she can give that justifies her using my dad, abandoning the family and screwing over my dad in the divorce. I will continue being no contact with her.

You ever figure out why your half sister had a worse relationship with him?

It's sad that your dad fell into taking drugs. His life was definitely hit hard after the accident but he had the support of his family.

Maybe he couldn't take losing you and your mum.

Well at least you know that your dad might have been a good guy before that accident. And you won't need to hate him forever.

LeCh0nk posted...

You ever figure out why your half sister had a worse relationship with him?

Yeah. He got her mom pregnant when she was in college and he walked out on her. Her mom resented him for this, rightfully so, and I'm guessing her mom took the opposite approach that my mom did and told her the full story. So she always resented him. Her mom died at some point before my dad was sick, but she wouldn't even let him go to the funeral.

At some point, I need to reach out to her to get some kind of relationship going. I have this (likely) weird and stupid fear that she was see too much of my dad in me and resent me as well. At the very least, we're going to have to make a decision about what is going to happen with our grandparents' house. Our aunts and uncles have legal ownership of it at the moment and a cousin of ours is living there... But the decision is eventually going to fall to us.

I have absolutely no interest in managing a house or land in Pollard, AL, but I know the family doesn't want to sell the place.

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This >_>

Sorry all that happened, TC

Man, that's rough. I didn't get the story until my father died, but my sister is only my half sister, because my mother cheated. And she only told us because he started coming around again the second my father died because he wanted a relationship with my little sister. It really fucked up her life. She moved hundreds of miles away to get away from all of this.

Good advice. Not gonna lie though, I dread the day my son starts asking about why his mom and I broke up. It will be so awkward to have to explain that his mom cheated on me

Im glad you were able to get some resolution and this is a good point to bring up. I still have some things I would like to talk with my parents about before they passed, and sometimes I struggle with topics to share with my children and how to approach those conversations.

Its a balancing act of having healthy communication, working through difficult times, and knowing when some people have a right to certain information when its a part of their story and their life.

Yeah, those first couple posts are awful. TC doesn't deserve that.

Sorry your dad was like that, TC. I know it's tough to find out the bad things about your parents, and I'm sorry he wasn't there for you, TC.

appreciate you sharing with us, TC. this inspired me to forgive my father for the silly, petty things i was annoyed with and just give him a hug because he's 73.

Tag for later.