Memoirs Part 4

I think I have gone through my whole life searching for a father. After Craig left us to go raise his brother’s six children in Long Beach, it was back to being just my mom and I. Still, even at the age of six I felt something missing. I grew to be very close with my Godfather, Tim. He was tall, broad and built a little like a chunky football player. He drank from a cup with his pinkie up and had a taste for other attractive men. He never had much luck in the love department though. I can only remember him having a semi-long term partner but other then that, he was very alone. He and my mom were great friends.

Uncle Tim (which is what I called him) was my best friend. On his good days, he would take me to the beach, or drive me to Beverly Hills to go shopping. We couldn’t actually afford to shop there, but since I was a huge fan of 90210 he loved to take me there anyway. He was very silly, very flamboyant and very good at making me feel special. But he had a problem with depression, and my little mind couldn’t comprehend how he could go from adoring me to shelling up inside of himself, moody, angry, and inpatient. My mom would do her best to explain to me not to take it personal,

“It’s just that sometimes Uncle Timmy gets sad and needs to be alone.”

“Did I make him sad?” I’d ask curiously, still confused how he could go from playful to scrooge in a matter of minutes.

“No sweety, sometimes adults get sad just like little girls get sad. So when Uncle Timmy gets sad, you just need to be a good girl and leave him alone. Okay?”

“Okay mommy” I’d reply, still unsure if it wasn’t some how my fault he was so sad. It never failed that his moods would spark whenever I was around. I always felt a sense of guilt.

Later when he would get into those moods I would get angry at him because he would get angry with me. I always felt guilty though, like I some how made him sad, never understanding or even realizing that I didn’t have anything to do with it, but it was the chemicals inside his brain that caused the dysfunction of his moods. I never for a second stopped idolizing him though.

I try and look back and remember him and it’s hard to. I can’t think of a single focused memory I have of or with him and I know there are plenty. I know he was always around us. When I moved to Missouri he stopped calling, he came to visit once but I don’t even remember that visit. He just stopped caring I guess. I remember being hurt that he found it so easy to slip away from my mother and I. I had gone from him being there every day of my life to not being there at all, and it still pains me. I definitely remember all the love I felt for him, the attachment I had to him, I remember him loving me too.

I remember he used to take me to his father’s house on occasion. His father didn’t know he was gay, at least Uncle Time had never told him. But whenever I was there his father was always very kind to me, and attentive. The air told a different story. There was so much tension you could literally cut it with a knife. I have a vague memory of Uncle Tim telling me his father was very abusive to his younger brother, physically, sexually and mentally, which is why his brother was never around. I always had the distinct feeling Uncle Tim suffered the same fate his own brother had at the hand of their father, but he never said as much. But inside I know it to be true. Uncle Tim both loved and hated his father.

I used to go into Uncle Tim’s old room and pull out a cardboard box full of all his old toys and that’s where I’d stay while he’d visit with is dad. Sometimes his dad would come into the room and check on me. If there were a toy I was really excited about he’d tell me to take it home, that I was the only reason he kept that box of toys around anyway.

After we moved to Missouri he kept in contact for about a year. After that he stopped calling, writing or visiting. On my trips back home to California, he was always too busy or couldn’t be found.

When I was 15 I went home to visit and decided that to get past my disappointment and bitterness with him I needed to confront him. I found out where he worked through a mutual friend and “surprised” him. He was really thin now, and his hair seemed wispy and thin. He had dark circles under his eyes and a fake smile on his lips.

“Oh my God Hanna!! Look how grown up you are!” he said.

I nervously shifted my feet in the sand, drawing circles with the tip of my shoe. “Yeah, I’m all grown up.” What I really wanted to say was, “And you missed it all. You always said you loved me and I was important to you. And you missed it all. Five years worth.” But I didn’t say those words, instead my heart raced and my hands shook a little. Shoving them into my pockets didn’t help. “..And you’ve lost a lot of weight.”

“Yeah, a little bit.”

He sat down, put his hands in his lap and looked around as if to find a reason to escape. I could tell he was uncomfortable, that he felt ashamed for hurting a young girl, for disappearing from her life. I had nothing to say to him either really, so I stayed quiet. Scratch that, I had plenty to say to him but I was scared to say it. After a few moments he said he had to get back to work and that he hoped he could see me again.

Yeah right.

I bid him good-bye and went back to my Aunt’s house where I was staying I wrote him a long letter, which I later delivered to his house when he wasn’t home. The letter explained it all. I heard later that he wadded it up and threw it in the trash. That he was angry. Good, mission accomplished. Now maybe he felt just a tiny inkling of what I felt towards him.

The thing about my “uncle Tim” was that I adored him, I cherished him, I looked up to him as if he were my own father the entire time he was in my life. And he was in my life every day from the time I was two until the day I moved to Missouri. Next to loving my mother, I loved him. I guess I still love him.

Talking to my mother about him now helps make sense of what happened. I am sure his lifestyle went awry; he never had any luck with love, and he battled his homosexuality. Along with his depression that

at times got so far out of control no one could reach him. I have a feeling that my meeting him again at 15 I realized what a weak man he really is, was, all along. That saddens me because as a little girl he was such a strong, dependable figure in my life.

I still regret that I lost him along the way. I think if he were still the same Uncle Tim he was when we lived in California, he’d be so proud of the woman I have become. I think more than anything we’d be even closer. I like to think that anyway. I pine for the man he used to be.

And like my father, and Craig, he makes up a part of my past that is quietly tucked away into the corner of my soul. I wonder if one day they’ll just find a small hole and slip away completely.