This is going to be a weird post, but just go with it.
My
father died.
I know this because today I received, in the mail, a small
check from his wife with "distribution" written on the memo line. There was nothing else in the envelope. It took a quick minute of Googling, and there it
was - his obituary from May. I won't link to it. I am not sure he deserves it, and there's no sense in advertising my actual name too broadly.
He took off on us when I was younger, and I
lost the house I lived in, after he insisted that it be sold. He held his wealth over our heads (those of my mother and I). She was a housewife getting divorced in South Carolina to someone who had done all the outside-the-house work. How do you think THAT divorce settlement treated her? But he always offered me the chance to leave HER and move in with HIM. Thanks, father, but I think my mom had enough men abandon her in her life. I stuck around.
Fast forward through many years of lean living, including a time sleeping in my car, some student loans, summer jobs, and here I am, a
moderately successful DOJ lawyer with only non-visible scars, but a
penchant for dick jokes.
He and I had virtually no contact for 25
years. And today, out of the blue, when I need money to pay for a
lawyer to keep MY kid from being scarred from a horrible custody fight, a check lands in my mailbox.
I
don't believe in Karma. But I do find the coincidence quite
fascinating.
P.S. I'm also strangely unsettled by my reaction to this news tonight. If this isn't one heckuva capper to an already crazy week, I shudder to think what is coming.
