My Father

George Edward Sheldon.  Ed was what he went by.  Or Fast Eddie, if he were speaking of his days running the roads and speaking to people "across the country" on his CB Radio.

My Father.  Wow.  I haven't really spoken of or about him in quite a while.  Scary to bring up the past.  Some things are better left in the past.  If I tried hard enough (my old therapist told me so), I would/could remember the past well enough to recognize whether what my older sister told me was the truth.  I don't know that I want to know.

Ed Sheldon was in sales.  He sold beds, encyclopedias, frozen food...he worked collections and thus carried a concealed weapon in his (new every year) Cadillac.  Appearances meant absolutely everything to Ed Sheldon.  And oh the stories he could tell.

Ed was an alcoholic, plain and simple.  From the moment he awoke and puked up his cheap Gallo Hearty Burgundy Wine until the moment he passed out and left us in blissful peace for a few hours...he was a drunk. And oh the stories he could tell when he was drunk.

If you asked Ed at any given time about his past, you would get a huge variation of his past employ and experience.  At one point, he was a world-famous chef and his knife collection was worth thousands.  At another, he was in the Army and went to war to save our country (he never left boot camp).  He was a singer with Willie Nelson one time.  And if you talked back to him, apparently he had the power to "backhand you across the room".

I was the seventh of eight children.  There was Sue, Beth and Jim....Ed's children from his first marriage.  There were Rick and Gayle, my Mom's kids from her first marriage.  And then when Ed and Bev married, there was Lisa, Melinda (me) and Kathy Jo.  Ed always wanted a boy and since he was given three more girls, he decided to pretend that Kathy was a boy.  He presented her with BB Guns and fishing rods and every gift a little boy could want.  And when Kathy was killed at the age of eight, I thought that my Father was also gone.  Every year after that, when he was home, Ed put a single rose next to Kathy's photo.

When Kathy died, my Mom got heavily into the church, church activities, Bible study, helping others.  And Ed.....Ed drank.  A lot.  Ed regularly would leave my Mom for another woman.  Apparently any woman who would have him.  Ed felt that my Mother babied me after Kathy died and he didn't like the fact that I got more attention than he.

I used to pray that my Father would just stay away, keep living with whichever whore he had chosen for the month.  Unfortunately he always came back, tail between legs, and Mom always forgave him.  In fact, one time, when I was probably in the 7th grade, my older sister Lisa and I were forced to go for a ride with Ed, to help him pack up his things and carry them home from the whore of the month.  Nice memories.

Because I could never keep my mouth shut, I was the child who never got along with Ed.  I left pamphlets around the house about AA.  I told him, and anyone within ear's reach, when he was lying.  And that was quite often.  By this time, I was the only child living under Ed's roof.  Ed would treat me like dog shit, and then buy me something, so that I appeared to be a spoiled, well taken care of, young adult.  My brothers and sisters, I imagine, were jealous, from what one sister told me.  They never got all the things that I got.  They never lived with the drunk for as long as I did, either.

On the night of my graduation, I was having dinner with some family friends before the ceremony.  My Father, who absolutely could not have been bothered to come to the graduation, found us.  He stumbled into the restaurant, went to pull out a chair and sit down, missed, fell on the floor.....got back up, tried to shake my hand while saying "It's about fucking time you graduated.  When are you moving out?"  Nice memories.

As the years went by, time wasn't good to Ed.  He had heart problems.  He had diabetes.  He had a bunch of mini strokes.  He and my Mother ended up living in Vermont, on welfare.  When I would go and visit, my Mom would ask me if she could borrow $10 for gas money.  It was a sad turn of events for the man who owned a five bedroom home with an inground pool and a new Cadillac every year.

My Father went to Boston to have an operation on his legs.  He had a massive heart attack while on the table.  The leg operation, though, was a total success.  Ed lived for three days and died in the middle of the night on his third day.  For the man who was always making a "bang", he went out with a whimper.  On welfare.

I had a bit of a nervous breakdown in the middle of Brigham and Women's Hospital the day Ed died.  We had JUST started to get along.  And to speak.  And to be real.  And then he died.

When my older sister visited my Mom that same year, she and I went out and had a chat on Mom's front porch.  According to her, my Father was overly friendly with her and the two oldest sisters.  My sister didn't know for sure if he had ever touched the boys, or the three youngest.  As I said, I don't know what to believe.  Not sure I want to know.  He's dead.  What could I possibly say or do to him now, if I did find out what I don't want to find out?