Admittedly, I typically try to shy away from injecting a lot of my personal life or my family in posts largely due to the fact that I'm adamant about protecting my family's privacy and the fact that as a twenty year old kid who once treated social media like an open journal...I realize that I have an propensity to "over-share." However, this was something that made me sob so badly first thing in the morning and I feel that honestly? Its just a really nice story...then again I am bias. This morning after my wife left for work, I was attempting to fold laundry in my bedroom with my sons when my oldest son pointed to an action figure on the wall and began asking questions about it.
"Dada, is that YOUR toy?" He coyly asked (this is his way of looking for permission to use or play with something) and it hit me..."Actually no bud, that's YOUR toy!" He looked both elated and slightly bemused. Like, dada...if that is MY toy? What is it doing hanging up on YOUR wall? That's a damn good question, little dude (Kevin Pollock reference) The origin of said toy goes as far back as 1992 when my parents split up after my dad got drunk at my mom's work party and nearly killed his family in a parking garage. Before they divorced my mom moved myself and my two sisters with her into the in-law apartment of her parents' house. I had spent this particular day at pre-school and was shocked and somewhat jarred by the sight of my two sisters excitedly awaiting my arrival and ushering me into our house where I had received a special "gift" from our father. Waiting for me was THIS Robocop action figure. While I didn't understand the context, I had come to later learn that any time that my father REALLY messed up with myself, or with either of my sisters, or all of us as a family, he would buy things for us out of guilt to mitigate the fallout. I bring this story up because the night after we held his service, I had recorded a video on Facebook (Because, that's what all grieving people do, right?) Where I told this story and how much I LOVED that Robocop action figure and how at a time like this (my father and I had a very devastating final conversation the eve before he died) I weirdly was upset that I didn't have the benefit of one of his "I'm sorry" gifts. Hell, he died without ever telling me he was sorry.
At the time I was the manager of a family owned thrift store, by this time I had been there about five years. I always loved and enjoyed the company of my co-workers and the two women who owned the establishment and had a VERY good rapport with (almost) everyone who worked there. So much that I convinced myself that they were even family to me. I had taken my three bereavement days and returned still quite messed up (this triggered a downward spiral of drinking and serious depression until I would eventually bottom-out and spent many years in therapy) to find a gift waiting for me where we kept customer holds. One of my co-workers (who I adored, as she was very very lovely but also the girlfriend and now wife of a man I loved just as much and consider an exceptional human being. He also produced the EP I recorded many years ago) had apparently watched that video and found that action figure and gifted it to me with this note.
When I took the packaged figure off the wall my son tore it out faster than I was able to hand it to him and never put it down. The first thing that entered my mind was Erin's support, love, empathy, generosity, and her faith that one day I was going to have a "little Eddie," which whether it was kismet or happenstance turned out to be the case. My son looks like he could be my clone, its kind of scary actually. Ironically, looks like my clone and acts like my wife (but we won't get into that). I immediately excused myself into the kitchen where I completely broke down sobbing...like Kardashian ugly crying, can't catch my breath little kid cries. It was like watching my inner child grab onto the only decent memory he had of his father and treat it like some sort of totem of forgiveness.
My son played with the toy all day, but kept referring to it as "Daddy's toy," I don't know why but that brought even more tears out of me. He doesn't know its origin, the story about Erin giving it to me many years ago, or even why it was being perfectly preserved on my wall before he was even conceived. As hyperbolic as it sounds? My actual child playing with a toy that my father once gifted me because he screwed up and almost murdered his family and they had to scramble in the middle of the night to seek safety...my son doesn't know who his grandpa is (save for this, I don't talk about him) nor does he know how awful our relationship was. However, he now holds something that feels like the equivalent of hugging my inner child. I still live with so much anger and sadness, but after my son asked for that toy that always belonged to him, I think I can forgive him now. I just can't live with that anger any longer.
I joked to my sister that when my book finally comes out...rather than obsess over how many people read it or how successful or unsuccessful it is. Instead? I should appreciate what that book symbolizes about all the pain and anger that almost killed me, ruined my family, and could have destroyed any chance I had at correcting the mistakes of the past, to break the cycle, and finally give that poor kid a fucking hug and tell him....
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