My Dad

James Arthur Robbins June 25, 1945 — December 12, 2024

My dad, circa 1976

My website, Rhonda In Real Life, is dedicated to all the things I do to take care of myself and my family. Writing about my dad and processing the emotions I have kept inside for years is a form of self-care for me and a way to help me heal. Although it is deeply personal, my hope is that sharing it will be cleansing and help me navigate the emotions tied to the experience of growing up with an alcoholic father, with whom I haven't had much of a relationship for over 35 years. I have managed the baggage that comes with a father-daughter relationship like the one I had with my dad fairly well over the years, but losing him unexpectedly has stirred up a host of new emotions. Sharing a little of my story here is therapy for me.

I found out about my dad's passing in January this year. I was sitting on the couch with my husband, watching a TV show that reminded me of him. At that moment, I decided to randomly search for him online (something I occasionally do) to see if any old photos of him would appear. A photo did come up, but it was from his obituary. I was stunned to discover that he had died a month earlier. I was hit with a load of emotions that I had no idea how to deal with. I sobbed to my husband, then pulled myself together and put those emotions away until I could figure out how to sort through them.

My mom and dad circa 1967

The last time I saw my dad was at my high school graduation. He hadn't been living with us for over a year, but he came for a quick visit to see me graduate. He and my mom attended the graduation together, and after the ceremony, when all of my friends' parents were congratulating us and taking photos, my mom and dad were nowhere to be found. My dad hated crowds and left quickly, so I never saw them. I know my mom was disappointed that my dad made her leave, but she never had much of a choice when it came to what my dad wanted. My friend drove me home after the graduation so I could get ready for our grad night at Disneyland, and I saw my dad briefly before I headed out for the night. Back then, if someone had told my 18-year-old self that it would be the last time I would see my dad, I would have thought they were crazy.

I always believed I would reconnect with my dad before he died. I wasn't sure how it was going to happen, but I just thought it would. I know it was wishful thinking to hope he would just come around one day asking to meet my husband and boys and have some sort of a relationship with me, but I wished for it none the less. I was so afraid of rejection from him that I never had the courage to ask for this myself. I remember talking to him on the phone years ago when my boys were young and inviting him to visit us in Orange County. I was so proud of the home that my husband and I created and I wanted my dad to see that and meet my husband and his grandsons. I wanted him to see what I had done with my life, in spite of him and the internal scars that he left. He declined in an indirect manner, and I never asked again. I had hinted and hoped for an invitation to come see him over the years when we talked, but the invite never came.

My dad and I, 1971

Growing up with my alcoholic father made life very unpredictable and unstable.  His battle with alcoholism made it difficult for him to maintain a job, and he was frequently unemployed. I recall walking home from elementary school wondering if he would be at work, at home, or at our local bar. Often times if he was at home, he was drunk. If he was at the bar, it meant he was coming home very late, and very drunk, which in our small two-bedroom apartment meant that I was going to awaken to him stumbling in loudly after the bar closed. At the time, I didn't consider how terrible this must have been for my mother, I only thought about the anxiety it caused me. My dad had three different moods: he was either sober and unhappy, buzzed and somewhat content, or drunk and scary. I never knew what I was going to get on any given day and that unpredictability was so anxiety inducing. I preferred when he was buzzed and somewhat content, but that phase never lasted long before it turned into drunk and scary. My dad tried to get sober by going to an in-patient treatment facility where we lived in Santa Barbara two separate times. Neither attempt was successful and the debt my parents incurred for the treatment was very stressful for my mom. During his periods of sobriety, my dad was even more miserable to be around. It seemed he held a lot of resentment towards my mom, my brother, and me for having to get sober. Without alcohol to drown his demons, my dad had to confront them by himself, and he simply wasn't capable of doing that alone. He refused to go to AA or get any kind of counseling. I don't remember how long those periods of sobriety lasted, but I think it was less than a year both times. Eventually he needed his crutch back and gave in to the drinking again. Feeling like he failed his family just made him more unhappy, and his unhappiness always turned into anger.

My dad, my brother, and I, circa 1987

For my dad, living in a 2 bedroom apartment in Goleta, California, was like keeping a bird in a cage. He was a redneck cowboy through and through and he felt trapped living in a suburban apartment with his family. His heart longed to work on a ranch, herding cattle, or riding broncos in a rodeo. He was a loner and would often take off for a few days at a time with his horse, his gun, a couple of cans of something to eat, and a few bottles of his preferred booze. He was happiest on horseback, hunting, or playing guitar in a honky tonk band in a dive bar. Nearly every year, he went deer hunting, and I vividly remember hearing his truck pull up on our street, eagerly running outside to check for a deer in the back, and then rushing back to our apartment to tell my mom to lay newspaper on the kitchen floor so he could bring the deer in and butcher it. We would eat venison steaks and venison jerky for days.

My dad had a few different jobs when I was growing up. A harbor patrol officer when I was a baby, a long haul truck driver after that, and then a heavy equipment operator. He used to do excavation on jobs in a backhoe. When he was driving truck and working on his backhoe, his jobs were often out of town. He would be gone for a week at a time and come home on the weekends. During those times, my mom, little brother, and I felt free. Free from the anxiety of dealing with his unpredictable moods, free from the heavy weight of his unhappiness, and free to be our silly selves without making him angry. When you are as unhappy as my dad was, being mad at the world and taking it out on those closest to you was the only way he knew how to cope. During those times when he was gone, I have fond memories of the three of us spending time together and feeling like everything was temporarily ok. My mom did the best she could to try and make my brother and I feel safe and loved. She never made us feel like her life was hard or miserable, which I know it was at times. She worked hard to help support our family and never asked for much. She made my brother and me feel that being our mother was the greatest thing and all she needed to be happy. Thank God for my mom and the love that she had (and still has) for me...I don't know where I would be today without her.

My dad left us when I was a junior in high school. I remember the day so clearly. I came home from school, and he was in our living room, all packed up and ready to leave. He said he had planned to be gone before I got home, but maybe some part of him wanted to see me, I am not quite sure. He told me he was leaving for good. He said that he had to go because it was best for my mom, my brother, and me. I remember crying and telling him that he didn't have to go and that it was not best for us. I told him to please stay. I told him we needed him. I begged him not to leave. He gave me a hug, and we both cried. For so many years, I wanted a life without having to deal with my dad and his drinking, his unhappiness, his impatience, his strictness, his stubbornness, his unpredictability, his darkness, his scariness, and his outright meanness. But in that moment, the moment that I knew he was leaving us for good, I begged him to stay.

My dad visited a few times after that. He missed my mom and would come for a weekend here and there, pretty much whenever he felt like it. Those visits stopped after a while. The last one was in 1989 for my graduation. After that, he moved to Utah and eventually met a woman named Violet, with whom he settled down. I know very little about my dad's life after he left. I believe that he was married, but I am not actually sure. I would get the occasional birthday card from them, signed by Violet. I would also get phone calls from my dad from time to time, and he was always intoxicated. I knew the tone of his drunk voice so clearly, and it always made me feel a little bit sick to my stomach to talk to him like that. But I wanted a connection with him, so I tolerated it. I'm sure he needed to be drinking to have the courage to call me in the first place, or at least the booze made him miss me enough to call. The moment I would hear my dad's voice, I instantly felt like a kid again, like the little girl that desperately wanted his attention, love, and approval for so many years. Those sporadic phone calls gradually decreased until they eventually stopped altogether. I sent my dad a Christmas card every year and hoped that seeing me with my husband and our boys would make him miss me and want to meet them. A part of me also wanted him to feel guilty for not trying to be a part of my life. I wanted him to regret not being a better dad, and I wanted him to see what he was missing. I wanted him to want me and my family.

After I read about my dad's passing, I had so many questions. I wanted to know how he died. I had never spoken to Violet, but I had her phone number. I wanted to contact her, but I was also scared to hear what she had to say. What if my dad resented me for not trying harder to be a part of his life? What if he never even gave me a second thought? She is more or less a stranger to me, but she is also the only connection that I have to my dad. I didn't understand why she hadn't contacted me to let me know that my father had died. If I hadn't decided to Google him, I wouldn't have even known. I waited a couple of weeks, thinking about how I should go about contacting her. Maybe a letter? A text? Finally, I couldn't stand not knowing anymore, so I texted her. She texted me right back and said that she hadn't contacted me because she was in the midst of her own grieving and was waiting until she felt like she could talk to me. She asked if she could call me later that evening.

When we spoke on the phone, she told me that my dad had passed after a painful battle with cancer in his esophagus. His cancer wasn't treatable, and he didn't want to extend his life by eating with a feeding tube, so he started hospice treatment at home and basically starved to death. We cried together on the phone while we talked about my dad. It was pretty surreal... talking to someone I had never met and barely knew, and crying like a little girl about missing my dad. I think her pain was too big and too raw to have much sympathy for what I was going through. She told me that he loved getting my cards and seeing pictures of my boys. She said my dad made the decision to leave us all those years ago because he knew we would be better off without him in our lives. He thought that if he couldn't change, he should just stay away. She also told me that he had quit drinking about 10 years ago. That is hard for me to process. I always believed that if he stopped drinking, we could rebuild our relationship. My dad's struggles extended far beyond his addiction. I know bits and pieces about my dad's childhood, and I know it was rough. I want to think that my dad did the best he could, but after marrying my husband and having my boys, it is hard for me to understand how he was able to let go of a relationship with me and never try to meet his grandkids.

Photos from my dad's obituary

I still have so many questions, and I may try to talk with Violet again. Maybe once she has had some time to process all of this, she will have more to tell me. At least I know after talking to her that she really loved him, and I think they were happy together, or at least as happy as my dad could be with all of his demons. I am grateful that he didn't die alone. Now I have to figure out how to process the reality that he is gone, and I was never able to resolve anything with him. For so much of my life, having an estranged relationship with my alcoholic father was part of my identity. I would think of him often and wonder if and when he would decide he wanted to reconnect with me. I never thought he would die before that happened. He was always so tough, stubborn, and ornery, I thought he would live forever. I thought for sure that if he was sick and knew his time was close, he would reach out to me so that I could come see him. Violet told me that I wouldn't have wanted to see him in those last weeks, and he wouldn't have let me. Maybe that is an excuse, and maybe she's right, but I wish I had gotten that choice.