So many things make sense

Before I get into what I realized today, I have to give a little background.

My mom died in April of 1992 when I was 12. My dad started dating in June. Went to California in September to buy redwood for his cabinet shop and came home a week later engaged. They were married in February and my dad missed my 13th birthday because he was in California getting ready for the wedding. He didn't even call. Other things have come to light in my relationship with my dad, but after reading something today, I realize that this is where all of our problems started.

I have recently purchased many books regarding the loss of a parent, but most of them deal with losing a parent in adulthood. The one that I am actively reading, though, is about losing a parent before reaching the age of 18. The Loss that is Forever: The Lifelong Impact of the Early Death of a Mother or Father by Maxine Harris.

I'm in a chapter about the surviving parent and how they deal with their grief and what kind of parent they become. I came across this paragraph:

Many children first feel neglect and abandonment when a surviving parent remarries. By remarrying, the parent seems to be embarking on a new life, forming a different family, and leaving the surviving child behind. One woman commented quite directly, "We lost my father to this other family. He chose them and just left us out." Once her father remarried, all of the pictures of her mother were removed from the home and the life the family had enjoyed before her mother died was never spoken of again. Often the child is not included in the plans for the remarriage, so that the announcement that the surviving parent is going to take another spouse seems as precipitous and unanticipated as the announcement of death.

I felt and experienced so many of these same things. By the time my step-mom made her second trip to Texas, my dad had taken down all of my mom's pictures and only put one up in my room. The announcement of the wedding came as a shock to me because I didn't even know she was coming home with him when he returned from California. He picked me up from school and said that he had brought someone home with him and then at the dinner table he announced that they were getting married.

I was abandoned by my dad for my step-mom when I needed him the most. I guess this is why it doesn't bother me that I don't see him that often or even talk to him for that matter.