I Told My Father He Couldn’t Come To My Wedding

It’s a painful memory but I don’t regret it

My kids and I are chatting. They’ve just attended a few weddings where one parent wasn’t invited. These aren’t typical situations. They are complex family dynamics.

A few of them involve messy or abusive divorces.

“I wonder if they will regret it one day,” my kids say.

It’s a fair observation.

I realize there’s something I’ve never told my children.

“I asked my father not to come to my wedding,” I say. “It’s a painful memory but I don’t regret it.”

I loved my dad.

But my relationship with him was complicated.

I remember the man who sang to me and with me, who held my hand while I skipped beside him, and who made me feel like I had to be the most wonderful little girl in the world.

I also remember the man who walked out of my life when I was five years old, only to occasionally inhabit it again.

When I got engaged, I called him to let him know.

“That’s great,” he said. “I can’t wait to go and get a tux.”

I was stunned.

I didn’t think my father would expect to attend my wedding.

I was calling him because I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want him to hear it from someone else. Alcohol made my dad drift in and out of our lives.

It was a battle he would never overcome.

It made him forfeit the relationship between most fathers and their children.

He did walk my oldest sister down the aisle. But that had been the only wedding out of his five children he had attended. He was not at my brother's or my other two sisters' weddings.

I did not want him to be at mine.

I wanted my big brother to walk me down the aisle just as he had my sisters.

I always say the world and my dad could not be allies so he sought an escape that imprisoned us all. We loved him but we didn’t want to be like him.

A relationship with him wasn’t healthy.

I simply checked on him from time to time as I got older.

I remember going to visit him during college while he was hospitalized.

The doctor took me out into the hall and said, “How old are you?”

“I’m nineteen,” I said.

“Your father has cancer,” said the doctor.

It was another one of those shell-shocked moments with my dad. I was a babe in the woods. I was stunned by this announcement. I had visited him out of compassion and because I knew he lived a fairly lonely life.

Most of the time I retreated from him to self-protect.

But I stood in that hospital unprepared to receive this news especially alone.

It was five years later that I married.

I didn’t have the heart to tell my dad not to come to my wedding. I didn’t know how to fix it. I didn’t know what to do once he made the assumption that he would give me away.

I couldn’t hurt him.

My family and I were staying at the hotel where our reception was going to be held. It’s a few days before my actual wedding. We were making a long weekend out of it.

“What’s the matter with you?” asks my sister.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Colleen,” she says. “I’m not used to you being b*tchy. Something is definitely wrong and you need to tell me what it is.”

“I’m stressed,” I say. “I don’t want Dad at my wedding. I’m going to worry about how he will act and it feels unnatural to have him walk me down the aisle or even be here.”

My sister and I are a lot alike.

We are also a lot different.

I’m a worrier. She’s not. I’m a rule follower. Her not so much. I’m likely to stress myself out doing what I think someone wants or needs me to do. She’s likely to say why would you do that?

Her reaction is immediate.

She grabs the phone and begins punching numbers.

Before I can say anything she presses the phone against my ear.

“Dad,” I say. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come to my wedding.”

I can’t remember what he said.

It hurts my heart too much to think about it.

I could hear the pain in his voice.

I could sense the man who nicknamed his youngest child “Beanie” somehow thought I would be the one to forgive him all of his sins. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t that type of drinker. My father didn’t have a mean bone in his body.

He just couldn’t overcome alcohol.

He was a gentle man and what I refer to as a lampshade drinker.

I was relieved.

Despite how hard that phone call was.

My dad had walked out of my life many years before. He wasn’t healthy and that made our relationship unhealthy. I never stopped loving him but the choices he made changed our relationship.

If you know me, it’s surprising I made that call.

Typically, I would have avoided conflict.

I would have tried to please him, not myself.

Thankfully, my sister did what a young version of me couldn’t bring myself to do. I don’t like to think back to that moment. I don’t want to relive it. I might not have owed my father anything but I didn’t want to hurt him.

Still, I don’t regret it.

For me, it was the right thing to do.

We don’t make these types of decisions because we want to.

We make them because of a complicated family history. A parent who was a parent but wasn’t at the same time. A person who should feel so close to you but instead feels more like a stranger or a disappointment.

Someone you love.

But who didn’t have the ability to love you as they should have.