It was nine years ago to this day that I got off the school bus, on a
"Dad's dead."
I simply walked into my bedroom, in a daze of confusion. And metaphorically, that is how I have been for the last nine years.
I went to school the following day, just like Dad would have wanted. Surprisingly, my dad was a man teachers and school administrators probably bashed behind his back. I told my teachers that my dad died, and had my mom call later that Friday (he died on a Thursday) to confirm the news that, no I was not lying. But when a forty-five year old man dies in his home under unusual circumstances, it does not stay silent, and my teachers found out thanks to the tabloid artists at the Journal News, so a call was kind of useless. (Actually, my dislike for any Gannett newspaper is pretty universal). It reads more like the Malone Telegram than the major cosmopolitan newspapers of the world.
But I should have it seen it coming. If psychiatric conditions were terminal illnesses (disregarding suicide), my dad was ground zero. For the majority of his forty-five years on our planet, he fought serious depression. Some of those details I will leave for a tell-all autobiography. Disappointments in his academics, personal life, dissatisfaction, . I could blame it all of my cold grandparents (who never treated me cold, but did so their children, although my uncle and family friends could (and should, if I am incorrect), take issue with that), as my dad had a painfully strict childhood. He couldn't watch TV, heck, have a life outside of the Russian Orthodox Church/Russian emigre community in NYC. My dad embraced his Russian/Ukrainian background but I think at the same time hated it with a passion. He was more a blue-blooded American, one who watched Fox News, drank Jack Daniels (that and Smirnoff killed him) and loved the NRA. If he was a liberal he sure didn't show it at all. I don't think my dad knew what he wanted in his life.
I will admit that I will always, no matter how much I miss my deceased father, have a resentment against him. He treated me like a child with severe developmental disabilities, almost as if I was going to spend my life in a group home or something (which with the way he was going with me, might have happened). The cruel irony is despite the fact my father loved me to pieces (sometimes neglecting my own younger brother) he was not the right parent to raise a child like me.
The fear of ending up just like Alex Ivanoff has really screwed me up. I don't drink, I drove myself nearly insane to graduate college. I thought the death of my paternal grandmother would be the metaphysical force that would enable me to finally enter a relationship longer than three months, but as of today, I'm still waiting.
But to entirely trash my old man isn't right either. He was the main force behind why I have excessive intellectual curiosity today. He's why I pay attention to social issues and stay informed, because that's what he tried to do. My dad encouraged me to look outside the box, and I still do to this day. My dad, along with my mom and great uncle, are why I am a Mac owner, and still have one in my bedroom (it's as slow as shit though, but it runs!) I wish he'd seen me come to terms with my own developmental issues, my high school and college graduation, my romantic relationships (he would have been horrified of my girlfriends!)
I'm an Ivanoff and a Charczenko. And for that, I will never no what "typical" is.
REVISION: 4/15/13: Me and him had PLENTY of squabbles. It's been hard to forgive him in death of some of the choices he made for me in my childhood, but it's been easier as I've found out more about him in death. Eery, isn't it?
*By the way folks, I tells it as it is. Trust me, if I know you, chances are even if you are someone I am in love with (a girlfriend, hypothetically), family, other friends, etc, I probably have some criticism of you. I am critical of every single person I know to some extent, so don't take it personally. And you're in good company: the most person I am critical of out of everyone I know, is, yes, myself. Me taking prisoners? Mostly on exceptions.*
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