Ours is a sad story. My relationship with him was full of fear and hurt.
Don’t get me wrong, there were some good times. Periods in my life when I remember him as a good father.
He was a wanderer.
My mother did the best she could as an almost single parent. Their marriage ended when my brother died. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He was already having an affair, had been for years, it seems, with the company’s accountant and was in Europe with her when my brother died. He didn’t come home for the funeral.
I wouldn’t have divorced him, I would have killed him.
He changed the day I introduced him to his newborn grandaughters. Mellowed.
Became a Grandfather.
Don’t get me wrong, he was not reformed. He still hurt me, only in different ways.
With the children though he was a different man, someone who I came to admire. He adored them all, especially the boys. He was there when William died, almost cried.
On June 26th 2005 (Lily’s birthday) we told him we were eight weeks pregnant with twins. He told us he had been diagnosed with bowel cancer.
I knew when he told us there was a secondary in the liver that he didn’t have much time but he went through treatment after treatment and surgery too. Anything to preserve his life on this earth, all be it with little quality. He was just waiting to meet the babies.
In the days leading up to his death we spent time with him and he spoke in earnest about his estate and how it would be. He said we could trust her, the Evil Step Mother (ESM). Also known as the Wicked Witch of the West.
He was wrong, he was wrong about so much.
He wanted the boys to be looked after. He had divided the estate accordingly but not until the ESM had died too.
Now she wants me to sign that away. She wants me to say that he wanted her to have everything.
His will makes it so that she can have it. All of it, despite his constant reassurances and pleas that the children be looked after.
If I sign the forms she will take his estate and change her will and the boys (and my family too) will get nothing.
My Mum and my Aunties are up in arms, urging me to fight it all the way.
David says we are not in a position to fight, that we need to protect ourselves. She is, after all the evil step mother, with my father’s money to throw around.
I want to fight, I do but I don’t want to jepodise my family. It’s so complicated.
I am sad, disheartened that my father would allow this woman to do this. I am pressured, feeling as though I am some pawn in a game of hate. I am angry that after all my father did to me, to my family, to my mother, after all he trumpeted about caring for those of us left behind, it seems now that his intent was a false one…again.
A mask to make everyone believe he was a good man.
