Legacy

Well, the end is in sight. Received the draft of the affidavit for succession for Dad's estate yesterday evening. It made me realize that even when someone passes, there's still a lot to do, and once that's done, then the end is truly done.

Eighty seven years of life reduced to 7 pieces of paper. Seventy years of relationships, marriages, divorces and children reduced to two paragraphs. Sixty-two years of my life reduced to black and white, waiting for signatures and notarizing.

Back when I was preparing for Dad's Memorial, I tried to think of his legacy, and I've thought about it, frequently, over the past nine months. A whole lot of heartbreak, heartache, pain, suffering and missed chances. Six legitimate children, nine grandchildren, a few great-grandchildren. Two surviving sisters, two surviving brothers out of seven total siblings. None of his wives or relationships survived him. All of them, except Charlynne, passing away long after the relationships ended, but before he passed away.

In the end, he had a relationship with one of his children, none of his grandchildren and one reluctant relationship with his late girlfriend's granddaughter. Only one of his offspring chose to stay in touch with him. Almost every person he had known or had relationships with had closed the door on him by the time he passed away.

He was not the same man in those last four years that he had been throughout most of my life. Yet, his change came too little too late for most of the people who had known him in life. His desire for success, wealth, renown had cost him everything and every one. His need to control had stripped away everything worth having, in the end.

The worst part of it all, as far as I can tell, is that the one person he thought the most of and the most about, while there around him, did not want to be there with him, at all. She was there because he was her only hope of gaining her grandmother's estate. In the end, he let her down on that, as well.

When I hear people talk about him, I don't hear happy stories. I don't hear people talking about the good he did. And I don't hear people talk about the changes in him over the last few years of his life. He talked about making amends, but he never got around to actually doing so. I may be the only person he apologized to.

Some say even that was too little too late, but for me it wasn't. It was something I had waited 62 years for. It was something I never thought I'd hear him say. No, it wasn't worth waiting all those years for, but it was worth hearing him say it. It didn't wipe away everything that he had said and done or didn't do, but it was healing to hear him say that he regretted those things.

The tragedy of it, really, is that his passing won't leave much of a hole in anyone's life. Truth is, almost everyone who knew him has gone on with their lives without much notice that he's gone. Only two people have even noticed that he's missing, really. Charlynne's granddaughter and myself. I do miss him. I miss talking to him on the phone, I miss knowing that I can get in the car and drive to Louisiana and see him. Help him with things. Serah doesn't mention him, much. Other than to talk about how he was supposed to get her grandmother's estate switched from her father to her. And complaining because she doesn't have her grandmother's money. She never says she misses him.

My uncle Harry told me that he had gotten to where he wouldn't talk to my Dad because he got tired of hearing all Dad's lies and his bragging about things that he never did. But, he did tell me that Dad would brag about raising Serah and Uncle Harry said he really wanted to ask Dad why he didn't raise his own children. Because Dad never raised any of his own children. Three daughters with his first wife, Linda, were raised by their maternal grandmother, their mother and step-father. Two boys with his second wife, Sue, were raised by Sue, Bonnie, Dad's sister, Tene, Dad's parents and Dad's girlfriend, Ann Hanson Hale. One child by his third wife, Bonnie, was raised by Bonnie and Tene. Out of the six kids, I was the only one who was around him, much, and that was only because Ann was raising me and Dad lived in the same house.

But was being in the same house with him worth the price I had to pay to say I lived in close proximity to my father? Most people would answer with an expletive. I still carry the physical scars and the emotional and psychological scars will never heal, completely. I share one additional thing in common with Dad's youngest daughter, Karen, other than parentage. He tried to kill both of us. Her before she was born and me at 17. She still carries that emotional and psychological scar.

Dad left a legacy, as almost every person who lives does, but it's not one that has any good in it. It's not one that anyone would want to share. He lived 87 years, 11 months, 2 days. A wasted life. A life that left broken, hurting and scarred people in it's wake. A life that moved like a hurricane across the face of the planet, leaving destruction, pain and misery behind.