Sometimes People Leave You

It's been a strange year of flux, with people coming into and out of my life -- to paraphrase Stephen King -- like busboys in a restaurant. I haven't known quite what to make of any of it at any given time. Mostly I've been riding the waves and hoping for the best.

But when it rains, it pours. Recently my estranged father sent me an e-mail, which is bizarre in itself since he's not (or wasn't when I knew him) particulary computer savvy. Yet there it was in my inbox (and I have had so many strange things in my inbox lately, I'm getting harder to surprise), titled simply "Dad".

In the past sixteen years, I've exchanged letters with him now and again and seen him a handful of times. In the past three years, I haven't communicated with him at all... except to get a copy of the book to him. Still not sure what that was about. Pride? Revenge? I don't know.

So there it was, a thumbnail sketch of three years or more. A request for a response. An apology that wasn't half-bad and probably heartfelt.

I haven't responded yet. I don't know if I'm going to. He made a choice almost half a lifetime ago, and I wasn't part of that choice. I've tried to learn to live with the ramifications of all of that, and in some ways I've succeeded. Not very well, according to some. But I'm still here.

The list of people I can count on is pretty short, though, and apparently getting shorter. I wonder, this time, if I could count on him. Probably not. And it's getting harder to bounce back when someone leaves. But -- and there's always a but --I still kinda believe in possibilities.

Kinda.