The Family Secret

For many years I knew there was a family secret. I had no idea what it was, but I knew it was there. I could see it every time my father looked at my mother and when she looked at him. I could see it in my brothers and sisters. I somehow got the feeling that I was the only one who didn’t know it.

There were moments that I figured it was my imagination getting the better part of me. If something were important, I would certainly know, wouldn’t I? But that didn’t stop the deep feeling that there was something I should know that I didn’t.

When I was twenty-six years old, my mother and I went through a period when we didn’t speak. She blamed me for the death of my dog and basically said that she didn’t love me. I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t. I decided to let her make the first move.

Months passed. One of my sisters phoned me to ask what was happening between my mom and me. I told her the story, and then I asked her the question. I asked her what the family secret was – the one that nobody had told me. Her response was, “You don’t know?”

As long as I can remember, my father had gone away every weekend. If Christmas Day occurred on a Saturday, he would stay home until after the evening meal and then leave. I found out his reason for leaving was that he lived with another woman on weekends. I also found out that when he died, my mother had to put up with her being at the funeral. She had a son about my age. I eventually asked one of my brothers if he was my stepbrother. The answer was that he wasn’t.

I actually met this woman at my dad’s funeral. This unknown person came up to me and said, “You must be John.” She told me how my dad often talked about me. I didn’t add one and one.

I still remember my mom’s face every Sunday evening as the hour approached for my dad’s return. She would try to put a positive spin on it by giving us cake and sometimes ice cream while we watched Ed Sullivan on the television. My dad would come home and not much would be said.

When I finally found out the truth, I was relieved, yet sad. I wasn’t angry.

I was relieved that I finally had an explanation for all of the times I asked my dad if I could go with him and got a no. I also understood why he couldn’t help with driving for the softball tournaments our team went to.

I was sad that my dad was such a loser. I realized that I never really knew the man who was in our home during the week. That wasn’t him. There was this secret double life that he led.

He could have taken me aside and told me the truth, but he didn’t. How many times had he looked at me in his life knowing that he was living a lie?

How many tossed baseballs and footballs did he miss out on? How many times could he have played hockey with me? What pride could he have had knowing that he was shaping his son to be somebody special in the world?

He preferred to be somebody he wasn’t. I’m sure there were reasons that my father left my mother for another woman. However, he lost his own life with his family. He abandoned us and destroyed the respect and trust that he could have had. Had he told the truth, he would have known that our feelings, whatever they were, were based on reality, not some mythical man who watched Red Skelton every Tuesday night.

I can deal with the truth effectively. Trying to deal with the unknown is like playing a pinball machine blindfolded. You can participate and work the flippers, but you are not playing the game with all the information you need to succeed.

Here’s the funny thing, though. Once my suspicions have been validated, I wonder if there are any other family secrets I don’t know that will illuminate my past. Why do I ask? Because I just feel there are.