This photo is from about thirty years ago. I am wearing Ken's letterman’s jacket from Attica High School in Indiana. In this photo, he is my stepfather, and we seem to be laughing. Now, he is a source of grief, as he has been for nearly twenty years – but more so, because he died this afternoon at age 59.
He tried to be a father figure when he started dating my mom. I was about 11, and I told her I was angry. Her last husband had died seven years before, so in my memory it had always been just me and my mom. In hindsight, I understand why she remarried, but I swore at the time that he would never be my father. Unfortunately, that turned out to be close to true. He tried to be a father, but he could only manage being a pushover, willing to say yes whenever mom said no. He did try, I know he did, but he was also a prescription drug addict beginning in my teenage years. I didn’t know this until I was in my early 20s, and our relationship went downhill from there.
My mom kicked him out, but they remained friends. Meanwhile, he kept losing one job after another. He was a manager at a grocery store for a few years, and a manager at a Wendy’s for several years, but he never seemed stable to me. I kept him at arm’s length, and we’d try now and then to have contact. He turned angry, he started blaming me for not fitting into the neat little image of a daughter he had, he put me through a cycle of abuse and apology. I went no contact in 2016, when I was 35 and he was 53. He continued to be abusive by trash-talking me to my mom, and on social media, but I did not waver. My partners and therapist have all supported me in this.
He moved back in with my mom a couple of years ago following an MS diagnosis. I refused to go to my childhood home while he lived there. And then, in the fall of 2022, he was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. He moved to assisted living, but it was too late for much treatment. He was hospitalized on my birthday, January 18. My mom waited until she received a prognosis on Saturday to call me: “Days to weeks.”
So I went to see Ken on Sunday, January 22. I had discussed this with my therapist months ago – I needed to go for myself. I needed to say goodbye, because I am a compassionate person, and I wanted him to know on his deathbed that I loved him, I wanted to make that last effort. When I walked in the room and said “I love you,” his response was – to paraphrase – “Fuck you.” I stayed long enough to finish some paperwork with my mom, but it was over. He died at that moment, for me, and the rest was just sitting by the phone waiting for the news.
I know MS causes personality changes, as does addiction. I know this, and yet, this was who he was. My stepfather was emotionally abusive, absent in spirit, and/or uncertain how to relate to me for most of the 30 years we knew each other.
Now he is gone. He is my third father-type-person to die, but the first one I actually knew. There is no neat and tidy word for my feelings. I don’t know what to do next.