Daddy issues

I was a huge Burt Reynolds fan growing up. For many years, Smokey and the Bandit was my favorite movie. He was the epitome of cool. I thought he was the definition of a man.

It was an extremely sad day for me when Burt Reynolds died in 2018. Of course, as I am prone to do, I immediately went down a rabbit hole on YouTube of watching every interview with Burt Reynolds I could find. It was one of those cases of ignorance being bliss. In many ways I wish I never watched some of those interviews. Reynolds came across as arrogant and rude in many of these interviews.

He remains one of my favorite actors, but he was knocked down a few rungs. In his final interviews when he was old and frail, despite saying some very insensitive things, he did, however, come across as more vulnerable, humble, and emotional. His macho man façade had disintegrated. He was a shadow of his old self. It would have looked absurd, at this advanced stage in his life, if he chewed gum while wearing a shirt – unbuttoned halfway down – while sitting slouched down in a chair looking off to the side. That was typical young Burt Reynolds.

One thing that I heard over and over again in almost every in-depth interview with Burt was his relationship with his father. His father was a World War II veteran who was one of the first to storm the beaches of Normandy. In one interview, the host said that 70% of his regiment was killed on D-Day. When his father returned home, he served as a police chief.

As you might imagine, this war hero was tough on Burt. He was not one to give hugs or express his feelings. And this hurt. Reynolds would make mention of it in earlier interviews, but, especially, in later interviews, Reynolds downright choked up and his eyes watered up.

Reynolds was a football star running back growing up. He went to Florida State and appeared to have a good chance of going pro. A car accident in college would permanently mess up his knee, and his pro football dreams came to an abrupt end. 

Reynolds found a substitute in acting. His father was disappointed. Instead of being able to tell his friends that his son was a star football player, now he was embarrassed that his son was involved in the theater.

In one of Reynolds’ interviews, the host mentions that there is a saying in the South that you are not a man until your dad says you are a man. Reynolds agreed and replied that his father never did tell him he was a man. You could see the hurt in Reynolds’ face. Like I mentioned in the beginning, in the public’s eye, Reynolds was the ultimate man, yet Reynolds never heard that he was now a real man from the one person that mattered most to him.

Tears well up in his eyes when Reynolds recounts how his father never did tell him he was proud of him. At one time, Reynolds was considered the sexiest man alive. He even, famously, posed naked for Playgirl magazine. He was the biggest movie star in the world – making millions of dollars per movie – over a five year-span in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. He had jets, multiple mansions, fancy cars, and beautiful women. Yet what Reynolds mostly wanted was one hug from his dad and one “I love you, son.”

And that got me thinking about how important fathers are in their son's lives. I went on YouTube to search “daddy issues” and almost every video I saw regarded father/daughter issues. There were very few, if any, regarding father/son issues.

I began thinking about my own relationship with my father. I always considered myself a momma’s boy. My dad? I don’t know. Looking back, I feel I never really felt love for him, even as a child. He always set the bar very high for me – almost unattainably so. I had to be a straight A student. Instead of reading me bedtime stories like Three Little Pigs or Snow White when I was a child, he’d make me recite my multiplication tables before bed. That’s why whenever I play any kind of trivia game today and the subject “fairy tales” or “children’s stories” comes up, I just raise my hands in surrender.

I never thought anything of it growing up, though. That was the only reality I knew. I didn’t know kids slept over each other’s houses or that there were sports leagues for young kids to get involved in. Three times two is six. Three times three is nine. Three times four is twelve.

I guess back then I wanted to make my dad proud. And he wanted to be proud of me. I was full of party tricks. He loved the fact that I could say the alphabet backwards as a little kid. He’d have me do it in front of my aunts and uncles and cousins at family functions. I also knew everyone’s license plates. Go ahead, ask him. What is Uncle Jack’s license plate? SE-767. What is our license plate? RB-234.

For six years as a kid, I’d attend Portuguese school at my local Portuguese social club right after regular school three times per week for two hours each time. And they’d give homework. And they would have tests that you had to study for. And they would give reading assignments. So I would have to do that in addition to my American schoolwork. And I would have less time to do it all.

But I thrived. I was one of the top two or three students out of maybe fifty or sixty kids in my Portuguese school grade. I would, eventually, receive a $500 scholarship from them to help pay for college. Woohoo!

I’d also have to go to church every Sunday, and then attend CCD classes for two hours after mass. And they would give homework. And they would give tests. Again, I was one of the best students. Again, I had less free time to be a kid.

This was my reality. I didn’t know what I was missing out on. Looking back now, I realized I missed out on a lot. I missed out on having fun. I didn’t go to anyone’s birthday’s parties. I never had any birthday parties for myself that went beyond having just a few family members come over. That was fine. I didn’t know other kids would have parties with balloons and banners and all their classmates there. And plenty of gifts. And cool gifts. You know what I remember my gifts always being? Thick winter sweaters. An encyclopedia. A dictionary. A calculator.

My dad was a tough disciplinarian. He would spank me often. He would also unleash his belt on me a few times. I can still sense that feeling of dread when he would reach for his belt buckle and pull his belt through his belt loops on his pants. I didn’t get it nearly as much as my older brother. I was a saint. My brother was far more rebellious – staying out late, talking back to my parents. My brother would, only in recent years, admit to me that the reason he rushed into marriage at a very young age was just so he could get out of the house and away from my parents. I was 11 when he moved out and got married.

I didn't think of it as abuse then, and I don't now. I am sure we deserved it and my father never went to the extreme with it. But I do understand it is considered abuse by today's standards.

I, vaguely, remembered my brother and father having a fight the morning of his wedding. I remember my brother storming out of the house. Again, years later, my brother told me that they had a fight because my father told him, on the morning of his wedding, he didn’t approve of the marriage. My father said my brother’s bride-to-be was not in our class. Her and her family were beneath us. My brother told me my dad even said that straight to the face of my brother’s future father-in-law. Welcome to the family!

Once he got married, the burden of being a translator for my parents fell completely on me. My parents came to this country in 1967 and never bothered to learn the language. That’s what they had kids for. So here I was, beginning at age of 11, bringing my parents to doctors, lawyers, and social security offices.

My father was having back issues at the time. He required a couple of surgeries. He was constantly going to doctors. I had no free time to be a kid. He was also filing for permanent disability which meant I was going with him to lawyer’s offices and court hearings. You think, as a sixth grader, that I had any clue what these lawyers and judges were talking about? How was I supposed to translate all that lawyer jargon to Portuguese?

There was a particular jovial chiropractor back then (no pun intended) that we used to see – Dr. Bertini. I enjoyed these appointments. He was a funny guy, but his appointments were also jokes. It was in and out in a matter of about ten minutes. I liked that. The only thing I remember Dr. Bertini doing was tapping my dad’s knees with that little hammer thing to check his reflexes. OK, looks good. See you in four weeks.

Dr. Bertini’s opinion and notes, however, would be vital for the success of my father’s disability case. This one time, I was sitting in the examination room with my dad waiting for Dr. Bertini to come in. My dad then handed me a twenty dollar bill and told me, “When the doctor comes in, give him this money and tell him to put in a good word for me in his reports.”  Are you serious? Here I am a little kid and my dad is asking me to bribe a doctor… with just a $20 bill. I’m sure I did as my dad asked, and I am just as sure that the doctor laughed at me.

But this would be a trend for my dad, unfortunately. My father never had much of a formal education. When he came over to this country, I think he 100% believed everything he saw on TV. I know he did. He would watch movies or shows of people bribing people, and he thought that is the way it is done. Slip him some cash in his hand when you shake it and wink, wink.

I can, maybe, laugh about that particular incident. Later in life, however, it would be a much different story when I believe he thought it was acceptable to cheat on his wife because of the storylines he would watch in his Brazilian soap operas of which he was a huge fan. I think he was always a womanizer, but I could see the sparkle in his eyes, and the slight smile on his face, when he would see men on TV cheating on their wives. See? It is acceptable here in America. Just like bribing doctors.

When you are younger, you think your dad is God. You think he is the smartest, strongest person in the world. You go to him for advice. You trust him to protect you at all costs. You believe that he would sacrifice everything for his wife and kids. But there comes a certain age when you realize that your parents are not all perfect. Maybe they aren't that smart after all. Maybe they make mistakes. Maybe they are not all so altruistic.

I remember visiting Portugal, for the third and final time, when I was 18. We stayed at my mother’s family home. It was in a poor, underdeveloped hillside village. It was 1978 and it still had no running water or electricity. But I loved it.

The first time my pristine image of my dad took a hit was when my mother’s sister and I were alone in a desolate field. My aunt turned to me and asked me if I knew anything about my father’s girlfriend in Fall River, which is a city with a heavy Portuguese population about thirty minutes from where I lived.

What?? My dad had a girlfriend? There was no way he would cheat on my mother. Look at him. Who would want that?

But my aunt insisted that he had several girlfriends over the years, both in America and Portugal. Of course one can question the morality of my aunt telling me about these rumors regarding her sister’s husband. I know I did, and I took it with a grain of salt, even at that young age. I dismissed it as just rumors, but it always stuck in my head.

Fast forward about thirty years and I began to suspect my dad was having an affair with a woman who lived a few houses down across the street from us. I was now living on the second floor of my two family house. Every day my mother would leave for work around 6:30 in the morning. And every day, my dad would leave the house at 7 in the morning to go for his morning walk. And every day I would see, through my window, my dad stop in front of this lady’s house and wait. Moments later, she would come out of the house and the two of them would go for their walk together. Every day. I could just sense that my father couldn’t wait for my mother to leave so he could shuffle to the door and leave for his walk… with this lady. After all these years, my aunt’s words in Portugal were flooding back to me.

My dad would also go over to this woman’s house a few times over the course of the day. Sometimes I would see him carry a hoe over his shoulder as he crossed the street to her house, which was always an odd spectacle. Did he think he was in the old country walking down a dirt road? 

He would help her with her garden or any other odd jobs at her house. You know – things a husband would do. This lady was about the same age as my dad, maybe even a little older. She had never been married. I think I remember one of my uncles telling me that my dad thought she was still a virgin and wanted to “test” her out. He considered her a challenge.

So I always suspected something was going on. I’d catch my dad standing in our driveway, or sitting in his car, just staring over at her house for long periods of time. I even noticed that it looked like he, purposely, broke off a small piece of a blind in his sitting room, which faced her house, so he could spy on her.

After a while, I may have told my mother that I was suspicious of them. She told me I was crazy. Up to this point, my mother was friendly with this lady, as well. On weekends, she would even join them on their morning walks.

A few years later, about ten years ago, I was in my bathroom getting ready for work. It was a nice day out, maybe late Spring or early Summer. I had my window open to let some fresh, cool air in. 

As I was doing my thing in the bathroom, I heard some voices in the backyard. I recognized the voices right away. “The Mistress,” as I now referred to her, had a very distinguishable, shaky, whiny voice – a Portuguese version of Katharine Hepburn. I look out the window, and to my surprise my father and this lady are hugging – directly below my bathroom window. He must have thought I had already left for work. Not only were they hugging, he was caressing her arm up and down. Gag! 

I swear – if I see them kiss... (They didn't.)

What happened next did shatter me to the core, though. The Mistress looked to be shaking and nervous, maybe even crying. My dad was, obviously, trying to comfort her. Then, as clear as day, I heard him say these words to her, “Just say the word and I will turn my back on my family and run away to Portugal with you.” It was like right out of one of my dad’s Brazilian soap operas. I am sure that is where he got it from.

To the Mistress’ credit, it appeared as if she was rebuffing him. The damage in my mind had been done, though. 

Turn your back on your friggin’ family? A wife who has, literally, been your loyal servant for fifty years? Your son (me) who was there, always, when you needed him? 

I was a mess that day, and I continue to be a mess to this day. My life forever changed in that moment. And if I hadn’t been there at that moment, I may have never known the truth about my father. Would I have been better off?

I had put up with all his negative comments – to my face and not to my face – that he was disappointed that I was a lowly fast food restaurant manager. I had so much potential as a kid, he would say. On a couple of different occasions over the years, I would overhear him on the phone, talking to a relative, saying how shitty me and my brother were as sons – how neither of us had amounted to anything.

With my dad, it was all about image. He wanted us to be successful to make him look good. I remember another conversation I had with someone in Portugal that last time I visited. When I got introduced to this person, he said, “Oh, you are the American son.” 

I asked this man I had never met before what he meant. I mentioned earlier that my parents moved to the U.S. in 1967. I was born in 1971. My brother was born in 1960 – a month after my parents got married. You do the math on that one. My brother has always been bitter that he was an unwanted pregnancy. I mean, really bitter.

This old man in Portugal went on to tell me that my father never really loved my mother. My dad was just a very horny young man. He actually was in love with someone else. I actually knew about this woman because my father showed me a picture of her once. He kept the picture tucked away in a sleeve inside his wallet. The old man told me that my father’s father made him marry my mother when he knocked her up. That's what you did back then. Again, I knew this.

What I didn’t know was that my father wanted to have a son once in the United States so he could go back to Portugal and show off his American son. That would be me. And I believed it, and still do. I also believed he wanted to have an American son so he could groom him to be his personal assistant when the child grew up. To my father, everyone walked this earth to serve him.

I dealt with all that stuff. What I couldn’t accept was what I had just heard in my backyard. I didn’t go running, immediately, to my mother with what I had just witnessed. I could have very easily pulled an “I told you so!” But I wasn’t happy or proud of being right. I didn’t want to hurt my mother. But was I hurting her more by not telling her or by telling her?

I didn’t tell her for the longest time. It was, definitely, months, maybe even a year after. It wasn’t something I planned on doing. It just happened. I think I was down in the basement, watching my mother wash dishes, when I’m sure the topic of the Mistress came up and I’m sure my mother was telling me for the hundredth time that I was crazy. I, probably, couldn’t take it anymore and said something like, “Oh, yeah. Well listen to what I heard dad say to her.”

She still said that she didn’t believe me, but I felt like now she did. She knew I wouldn’t make up that story. She knew I wouldn’t hurt her like that.

Almost immediately, I saw a difference in the way she interacted with the Mistress. My mother avoided her more. She didn’t go for walks with her anymore. She didn’t go over to her house anymore. And the Mistress sensed something was amiss, as well. She always avoided me. She always knew I had my suspicions and that I despised her for it. I would never wave hi to her or acknowledge her on the streets. She knew to never come over when she knew I was home. My father told me she was afraid of me and to be careful because she had a nephew who was a lawyer. What the hell did that mean?

Even though I could now see the hurt in my mother, she would still tell me I must have heard the conversation wrong. I was feeling guilty for making my mother sad, so I told her maybe she was right, even though I knew I wasn’t. I had unburdened myself. I had done my part. She had the information whether she wanted to believe it or not.

Then one day my mother told me she confronted the Mistress about what I had heard. My mother told me it took all the courage she could muster, but she went over to the Mistress’ house and asked her if what I had heard was true. Again, to her credit, the Mistress did admit what I had heard was true. She explained, however, that she didn’t know why my dad had asked her to run away with him. She insisted she had done nothing to lead him on. She told him she had gone her whole life without a man, and why would she want one now?

I firmly believe my mother’s mental state rapidly declined right after this. Do I blame my dad for, indirectly, killing my mother? Yes. I do. And I will never forgive him for that. My mother sacrificed everything, and did everything for him. They were, truly, partners in life. They had known each other their entire lives, and they started a life in a new country from scratch together. I can’t even imagine the betrayal my mother must have felt.

My relationship with my dad was irreparably damaged. From an outsider’s point of view, you would never have noticed. We were cordial together. There was no hostility. But things were different. Despite living in the same house, after my mother died, I’d go days without seeing him. I’d avoid him. I would tiptoe down the stairs and slowly open doors when I’d leave the house. One of my cousins told me my father referred to me as “a ninja” because I would sneak in and out of the house without him ever noticing. I took pride in that.

One day, a few months after I took my leave from work due to grief and depression, I was talking to my dad in his living room. Yet again, he was bitching at me for going “weeks” without coming downstairs to check on him. I’ll admit I would go three or four days without talking to him, but never more than a week. But, he kept at it. Finally, I broke.

“Dad, you want to know why I don’t spend time with you? I heard you tell that lady you would turn your back on your family and leave us for her if she would just say the word.”

For a brief moment I felt bad for him. He was now a feeble old man. He was closing in on 90 years old. I could sense him sink deeper into his chair as I stood before him. He wouldn’t look at me. He just looked straight ahead at the TV. He didn’t say anything.

"You can’t deny that you said it. I know what I heard. I know what I saw. And the woman admitted it to mother. I will continue to show you respect as my father, but I won’t be your friend. Things will never be the same between us. Why would you ever say that to that woman?”

He remained silent for a few more minutes as I continued to badger him. Finally, he just blurted out, “Have you never said a lie to a woman to get what you wanted?”

“Oh, really, dad? And what did you want from this woman?”

I was sickened and left. I had said my piece. Now, hopefully, he understood why I didn’t spend extra time with him. Now, hopefully, he understood why I avoided him. And, hopefully, now he understands why I am suffering from severe depression and that this is a real disease and that is absolutely debilitating to me.

Our relationship has remained respectful since. We still talk. I still check on him. There is no yelling. I help him with his bills and still take him to the doctor.

But a part of me is gone. There aren't many parts left. A huge part of me died when my mother died. What I loved most about my mother is that she loved me unconditionally. She didn't care what kind of job I had or who I was dating. She loved me for me. The same could not be said about my dad.

I disappointed him. I was a failure to him. And he betrayed my mother and me and my brother. It doesn't matter if you are the biggest movie star, or the richest man in the world, what every son wants is to hear their dad say, "I love you son and I am proud of the man you have become." No matter what.