An Unwanted Life Story: A Eulogy For My Socially Distant Father

This is the seventh instalment in the Unwanted Life story series, with today’s Unwanted Life story coming from Scott Beller, the editor of the Daddying blog. Today, Scott will be sharing their relationship with their father, who often made them feel unwanted. Scott has provided his own introduction followed by their unwanted life story, so check that out below, and when you’ve finished, go check out their blog. So without further ado, here’s Scott’s story about his father.

 

 

My DADvocacy Consulting Group colleague of nearly two decades Allan Shedlin and I launched the Daddying blog in February 2020, just as the COVID pandemic began altering the lives of millions globally while separating us all into our own geographic micro-bubbles. We did so with the mission of giving people – specifically, but not exclusively, men – of all ages and backgrounds a place to share stories of joy and pain about the relationships they had or wish they had with their fathers and/or their own children.

 

Daddying was created to highlight the joys of a father’s presence and help ease if not release the pain in their absence. Ultimately, it supports men’s efforts to be the kind of positively involved dads their children want and need them to be. In many cases, to be the dads their own fathers were not willing or able to be. I am one such case. So, as editor of the blog, it was only fitting that my first official contribution to the Daddying archive focus on the dad I had and how he motivated me to become the loving dad I always wanted.

 

The following is the story I told our blog readers back in April 2020. It’s one I’d been waiting to share for more than 40 years:

 

My father died in early June 2017 and wasn’t found until weeks later. When we got the news, my family and I were on our way home from vacationing in the Outer Banks. It wasn’t a shock. He’d been in and out of medical facilities for many months prior and had been kicked out of several for violent behavior. He died angry and alone in his apartment. He was 71.

 

By the time he died, my father had become adept at social distancing. He’d alienated what little family he had and didn’t have any friends that I can remember. This isn’t surprising since he treated everyone with contempt, particularly his family. My father wasn’t at the hospital when either my sister Jodi or I was born.

 

Photos of him holding or playing with us as babies or toddlers are almost non-existent. The snapshot of little me and him at the pool was typical: dad asleep, a child in the vicinity, mom snaps candidly before dad notices. It’s one reason I’ve made taking photos of my kids growing up a priority. And, when possible, I’ve tried to be in the picture with them. “Selfies” have become a misnomer for me as a dad because I mostly take them with one or both of my girls when they let me. They are my main focus.

 

 

As my sister and I got older, my father often went days without speaking to us. He didn’t travel for work, or disappear to the golf course on weekends, or retreat behind closed doors for privacy. He either went outside to do “yardwork,” or simply sat in the living room and ignored us, refusing to acknowledge us when we tried to speak to him.

 

When we did get his attention, he made fun of, criticized, or yelled at us. He made us feel unloved. Worse, he made us feel unworthy of it. My mom, on the other hand, did her best to counterbalance my father’s hostility. She sustained and comforted us with regular encouragement, affection, and unconditional love.

 

After 17 years of enduring his abuse, she finally had enough. It was the summer before my sophomore year in high school, and she took me and my sister with her.

 

In September 2019, my mother Mary passed away unexpectedly. I was fortunate to have spent time with her the day she died. We had lunch. I was able to hug her, to tell her how proud I was of her, and tell her I loved her. She was also 71.

 

 

It took me just 90 minutes to write her eulogy, which I read to a gathering of loving family, friends, and her former colleagues.

 

I didn’t know it at the time, but I started writing my father’s eulogy in 2003, soon after I met and began working with Allan to launch Dads Unlimited, the first of his three advocacy organizations promoting dad involvement. Actually, what I wrote was not a eulogy. It was a short story, titled “Father’s Day.”

 

For 17 years, I’d been rewriting it in my head and, eventually, on my laptop. Wrestling with it. It remained unpublished until it was shared in 2020 as part of my first Daddying blog contribution. After rereading it for the first time in at least a decade, its references seemed dated, but the sentiments held true. Almost three years after his death, I finally realized the story really wasn’t for my father. It was for me.

 

I’d kept my feelings of loneliness, abandonment, inadequacy, and imperfection to myself for so long. I needed to see it on paper, in my own words. I needed a way to deal with the pain before I had my own children. I didn’t want to expose them to the same undeserved bitterness and resentment I’d experienced.

 

I can say with some confidence that, though difficult, the writing process helped. Of course, like all parents, I’m not perfect. After working with Allan for 20+ years, I’ve gained a better grasp of how to express the frustration, pain, and longing I often feel not having a reliable, loving dad in my life. I also recognize, that despite not having the best dad role model, there have been many other positive parenting examples in my life that have helped me now that I’m raising children of my own.

 

 

My “patchwork dad,” as Allan called it in an article he wrote back in 2009 for the New York Times, included characteristics from my mom, former teachers and bosses, a host of characters from TV/movies (e.g. Jim Henson, Mr. Rogers, Steve Martin’s character in Parenthood, to name a few), and even Allan himself.

 

The last time I saw my father was a couple of months before he died. He was serving a long stint in hospice care at the same facility where his mother breathed her last breath a year earlier. I was there with his sister, my aunt, holding my grandmother’s hand when she passed.

 

I feel confident in my last words to him. I wouldn’t call it “tough love,” but I was honest. I told him how I felt about his recent destructive behavior, how he treated me and my sister when we were growing up, how it hurt me to see him neglect himself as much as he neglected others, how he purposely pushed people away, including those trying to care for him and anyone who might have loved him.

 

I also told him I forgave him.

 

I left, as I usually did after spending time with him, vowing to be a better dad for my children than he had been for me. And I left feeling some of the weight lifted from my heart.

 

The decades-long process of forgiving him also taught me to forgive myself. It’s an ongoing process and it could certainly have gone a different way. I know I am an imperfect dad, but I also know I’m always trying to be better.

 

 

As a work-at-home dad since the day my oldest of two daughters was born, I’ve been blessed with daily opportunities to be involved and to become the kind of dad my daughters want and need me to be. I’ve learned the best thing I can do for my children is to show as well as tell them how much they are loved and let them know I’m always here to support them and their dreams, unconditionally.

 

I never got the chance to deliver a eulogy for my father because there never was a funeral. His body was cremated, and I received his ashes in a curiously small box to do whatever I thought best with them. So, my sister and I decided to spread him somewhere peaceful. Somewhere he could finally be truly at rest. We chose his favorite vacation spot from our childhood, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. It was a trip we hadn’t taken together in 40 years.

 

By releasing my father’s ashes, we also hoped to ease our own pain that had burdened us for so long. Today, my thoughts and feelings about my dad have calmed but remain adrift, much like the remains I dispersed that warm, breezy October day in the Atlantic surf.

 

 

About Scott: A Father And More

 

Scott Beller is the proud, imperfect crew dad of two mighty girl rowers, imperfect husband of a rock-star mom/regatta chaperone, truth teller, former soccer coach, part-time driving instructor, photobomber, purveyor of banned books, Editor of the Daddying blog, and Director of Communications for DADvocacy Consulting Group (DCG) and the Daddying Film Festival & Forum (D3F).

 

He’s a seasoned writer and PR agency veteran with more than 30 years of experience helping organizations of all sizes reach audiences and tell their stories. Prior to launching his own creative communications consultancy in 2003, he led PR teams with some of the world’s most respected agencies, including Fleishman-Hillard and The Weber Group.

 

As a consultant, he’s helped launch two other parenting advocacy nonprofits with DCG founder Allan Shedlin. His first book, Beggars or Angels, was a ghostwritten memoir for the nonprofit Devotion to Children‘s founder Rosemary Tran Lauer. He was formerly known as “Imperfect Dad” and Head Writer for the Raising Nerd blog, which supports parents in inspiring the next generation of scientists, engineers, and creative problem solvers. He earned his BA in Communications from VA Tech.

 

 

I’d like to thank Scott from the Daddying blog for sharing their unwanted life story about their relationship with their father, with my followers and me. It takes a lot of courage to open up about such experiences. Sharing such personal stories helps spread awareness of how feeling unwanted can affect our mental wellbeing if we let it. I know, because I have a similar unwanted life story that involves my dad as well, which I talked about in my Father’s Day article.

 

 

As always, leave your feedback in the comments section below. Also, feel free to share your experiences of feeling unwanted and your thoughts on Scott’s difficult relationship with his father in the comments section below as well. If you want to stay up-to-date with my blog, then sign up for my newsletter below. Alternatively, click the red bell icon in the bottom right corner to get push notifications for new articles.

 

Also, if you’d like to submit your own stories of feeling unwanted, then let me know by contacting me through my social media accounts or by going to the contact page.

 

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