I knew exactly what I was looking for in a husband long before I met him. If there is one thing my father taught me, it’s exactly what I didn’t want my husband to be like. I admit that many of my expectations were a bit high and unrealistic, but sometimes you have to aim high.

After watching N interact with his young nieces it was evident he loved children. We used to daydream about the fun things we’d do with our own children one day, how we would raise them and what we would teach them. I took 5 pregnancy tests to ensure I was really pregnant before I told him. The look on his face was priceless and in that moment I saw all the dreams we’d talked about run through his mind again.

Fathers can put on a good act and do the mundane things required, but real men do the things that aren’t expected. I know how lucky I am to have a man who truly acts in our child’s best interest and puts both of us first in his life. He makes us feel secure and loved.

Our lives seemed perfect, but after my car accident I wondered what might happen to our family. You hear of things like this tearing a marriage apart. The stress, the financial issues, etc… As I was laying in ICU one of my first conscious thoughts was what if he leaves me?

I never expected him to and I knew in my heart he wouldn’t, but the thought crossed my mind. Today, I feel extremely guilty for ever even thinking such a thing. What a discredit to him and our marriage.

I was scared. Scared I would die. Scared I would never see my son again. Scared I would be injured beyond repair. Disfigured. Disabled. Not the same.

And I’m not the same. Neither is he. Events like this change you either for the better or the worse. In our case, it’s been a mixture, but overall we know what we have and plan to keep it for as long as we’re allowed.

Our lives aren’t the same and I know they never will be. We’ve learned to accept it and move on. Although the future is uncertain, the only plan we have is to be together. That is our promise to each other and our son. Anyone can make that commitment, but it takes a real man to honor it.

Are you sick of seeing this picture? I’m ready to move on. The week has finally come to an end. I don’t think I did a great job explaining this contest. Many bloggers thought they had to have a post a day all week long….which you didn’t. Just one post by Father’s Day. Many bloggers thought I was entering my own contest….which I wasn’t. That would be ridiculous.

Here are the 3 (oh, lots of competition here) folks who decided to share their father (or one they know) with us. My sincere thanks to them for participating! Go read their posts.

Eryn ~ About a father who taught an 18 month old how to “fetch daddy a beer” & cut the children’s mother out of their life

Celebrate Woo-Woo ~ Ever had to clean your entire plate of food as a kid? If she didn’t her father would beat her. If she did, she got a toy at the end of the week.

Drew ~ I’m not sure how to summarize his childhood. His father made him try out for soccer with no shoes on and on road trips he wouldn’t stop for them to use the bathroom. Instead they had a Tupperware bowl. Nice.

THE WINNER (SELECTED BY RANDOM DRAWING) IS: Celebrate Woo-Woo.
Congrats. E-mail me with your mailing address.

I decided to end this week with an inside look at how my father really feels. He sent this letter about a year ago, right before he was released from prison (which is a whole other story for another time).

I have to say it was shocking to read and hurtful, but it was the icing on a cake that should have been thrown away a long time ago. Obviously he has some serious issues.

LAST CHANCE TO ENTER.
All entries must be received by midnight.

E,

Of all the things you’ve done to me over the years I can’t believe it has come down to this. Didn’t you get my Christmas card? I can’t believe my own daughter and son tried have turned against me! Why the f**k haven’t you visited me here? Why the hell haven’t you let me see my only grandson? What the f**k kind of a daughter are you anyway?

I wish you weren’t mine for d*mn sure. From the way you have treated me like some convict and the way you have abandoned Brenda since I’ve been gone is sick. You deserved to die in that car accident. You are pathetic you know that? Your piece of shit brother deserved to die as well. If he’d tried a little harder maybe it would have happened.

For whatever it’s worth you make me sick.

Bob

Here’s to you Bob! You may not be the worst father in the world, but you’re the worst father I’ve ever had.

How do you follow a Christmas Eve spent at Best Buy threatening to rip people’s arms off? If you are my father then you cancel Christmas all together.

Many people who grew up with divorced parents know the alternate weekend and Wednesday evening routine. You spend every other weekend with your father and then Wednesday evenings at McDonald’s. In addition you either rotate holidays or split them as we did, by going with our father on Christmas Eve and our mother on Christmas.

The year after the Best Buy fiasco my father and I were discussing our Christmas Eve plans. It typically involved him picking us up (late), traveling about an hour away to visit his father in a nursing home and taking him to eat at the only place open in a small town on Christmas Eve - The Ferdy Flyer. As if the name doesn’t say enough, it was the kind of place that served homemade turtle soup if that gives you a good picture. But eventually The Ferdy owners decided to call it quits and then we were forced to find another place.

My father decided a tavern would be a good family choice. Don’t worry it had a family eating area. My brother and I sat in there drinking cokes and eating potato chips (because that is all they served), while my father and his dad sat at the bar drinking.

As we discussed the plans I asserted some common sense and asked if my brother and I could drive separately and meet him up there. My hope was that we could travel a little safer. My father saw it as, “just another instance where my mother could screw him out of the time he deserved.”

This argument went on for a while of course. I tried to explain we wanted to be back in time to attend Midnight Mass with my mom, which went over like a lead balloon. When I finally explained that his drunk driving scared the living heck out of me he had a serious come-a-part.

Despite everything I had thought about my father up to this point, he proved to have more control and power than I ever imagined. He canceled Christmas that year. No threatening to rip arms off, no tavern chips for dinner, no drunk driving….

It was the best darn present I ever got!

1 DAY LEFT TO ENTER!

This will be a story about Bob rather than a letter, but his words were still heard. Loud and clear. It was Christmas of my senior year of high school (only 7 months after the Prom Episode). My older Mercury Topaz had a radio but no cassette player and that is what I got from my father (and soon-to-be stepmother).

Nice gift. I was pretty excited to listen to tapes which sounds crazy, because today we’re beyond cd’s and moved on to digital music.

So my father, being the genius that he is, decides to schedule an appointment at Best Buy on Christmas Eve to have this new cassette player installed. Only the second biggest shopping day of the year folks! So he meets me at the store and they tell us it will take about 3 hours. We go eat lunch nearby, mess around and come back only to find out they haven’t even started yet (imagine that!?).

This is when my father’s temper starts to show it’s true colors of red with a trace of blue running through his forehead. Next, we walk around the store after the service man got an earful and told us it would be up next.

As I’m skimming through all the cool new cassette’s I can buy to listen to now, I hear our name on the intercom to come back to the service bay. My father got there before I did and it’s never a good sign when you can hear someone yelling on the other side of a steel door.

Apparently we needed to purchase some extra piece and my father is angry because the salesman guaranteed him it would require no extra parts when he purchased it. (Come to find out later my father also told him the wrong vehicle he was buying it for.)

Several more hours of hanging out in Best Buy on Christmas Eve go by…..very slowly. I’m beginning to ponder if it was even worth it. Then the familiar voice calls our name again. The problem now is that they don’t have all the pieces they need, so they won’t be able to complete it today and can’t put us back on the schedule for 3 weeks (because most people who bought car stereo equipment for gifts scheduled their installation for AFTER Christmas).

That didn’t go over too well as you can imagine. In a waiting room full of people my father turned psycho. You know the kind of psycho who threatens service workers. I didn’t hear what the guy behind the counter said, but my father yelled a phrase I will never forget: “I’m going to come across that counter, rip your f**king arm off and beat you to death with it!”

The guy called for a manager and security while he still had 2 arms. In my head I’m imagining police will soon follow. It’s sad that the people in the waiting area all got up and left, probably scared for their own lives (and arms)!

There was a lot more yelling between the time security was called and the time security arrived. In which my father took to his advantage by continuing to threaten this young kid. I just wanted to hide. But where? They had my car.

It was all worked out several hours later with no police intervention. My cassette player was properly installed about 3 weeks later and I haven’t been back to Best Buy since. I can only imagine in their break room there is probably a picture of my father from the security camera that says - CAUTION: May Rip Your F**king Arm Off & Beat You With It!

Your turn. Only 3 days left to tell us your story. Remember the prizes….$25 gift card to Wilson’s Leather, $15 gift card to Starbucks & a special prize I promise you’ll enjoy!!!