Father of Mine: Holding Onto Fading Memories

I can divide my life into two: before and after Dad.

Patrick B. Stewart

Apr 16, 2025

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I don’t remember much of my dad anymore. He left at the worst possible time regarding our father/son relationship when I was trying to find out who I was. Remember that time in your life when you were finally on your own and wanted to distance yourself from your parents? That’s when my dad chose to leave. In a way, maybe it was better he left when I was 20. I already didn’t talk to him much, and, for the most part, his leaving didn’t change my life in college.

Looking back, I have to admit it wasn’t all bad, at least none of what I was allowed to see was bad.

My earliest memory of life is about my father. I was sitting in front of the TV, and Dad came into the room to pick me up. He put his hand on my bottom to support me and check my diaper, and my poop squished out the side. I thought it was funny and laughed out loud. Truth be told, I can’t be 100% sure this memory is a dream or not, but I’ve had it for as long as I can remember. My mom says I must have been 18 months old because I was potty trained by two.

Dad worked at the church as a handyman. Later, my mom called him a glorified custodian. My grandfather owned a custom furniture and woodworking business, so my dad grew up around several tools: power drills, bandsaws, and heavy machinery. I visited my grandpa’s store no more than three times, and I remember playing with the giant rubber bands they would use to wrap plastic around the built items. This shop is also where I learned what a nail gun was and how you could shoot the nail across the room! Old nail guns didn’t have a safety mechanism, so you could point and shoot as much as you wanted. Or, maybe the gun was just broken.

Before I was born, my parents attended a large mega-church in Dallas. However, my father’s affair with a woman who attended would cause them to separate for a time. My father agreed to attend a new church when they decided to forgive and make the marriage work. Remember that in 1981, you could walk into a business and apply for a job in person. So, with two small children under three and one on the way (me), Dad walked into the Pastor’s office and requested a job. Wanting to help, Pastor Allen agreed and gave him a jack-of-all-trades position.

He built cabinets, remodeled rooms, and always seemed to be busy. Because it was a church, I was allowed to come and spend the day there during the summers or spring break when my brothers and I were too young to stay home alone. I remember the sound my Dad’s keys made as he walked. Since he was a handyman, he had keys to any room he needed, and there were dozens of keys. It sounded like Christmas bells each time his right foot hit the ground. I don’t own that many keys, but if I take my wife’s keys and hold them with mine together, then give them a good, singular shake, they sound exactly the same.

My church built a room overlooking the gym, which was given to the youth group. It had a Nintendo, a large TV, couches, and a pool table. We called it “the loft,” and it was amazing! My brothers and I could run around the church or watch movies during those summer days. We knew how to turn on all the lights in the gym and where the basketballs were kept. To this day, I remember the exact path between multiple buildings to reach the sanctuary stage from my dad’s office.

The stage usually contained an electronic drum set used on Sunday mornings. By 13, I owned a drum set at home, but I loved this electronic version because you could change the sound each pad created when struck. I used to play it for VBS (vacation bible school) for the younger children.

Because my dad worked there, no one seemed to care if I randomly played it during the day or if I turned the 1,000-person sanctuary lights on. I could work the soundboard upstairs and frequently moved all the knobs around to mess up their settings for Sunday.

Once per year, a Boy Scout-like organization my brothers and I were in held pinewood derby car races. We never won, but since my dad was good with wood, we had the best-looking cars! My favorite was the Batmobile from 1989’s Batman. While it wasn’t very aerodynamic, I was the envy of the room!

He made my older brother, Jeremy, the Mach 3 from Speed Racer and the General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard. He even put the Confederate flag on top, too. What can I say? Dukes of Hazzard was a hit show in the mid-80s, and we were huge fans as children.

Those are my favorite memories; I’ll never forget them, but it doesn’t change what happened.

During those long summer days when my brothers and I played around the church, my dad was busy “doing” something else besides fixing doors and cabinet-making. A recurring theme throughout my father’s life is that his pants disappeared at the exact moment when another woman had the same problem. In a shocking twist, several women at my church were also afflicted with this disease.

I could not contact him directly since this was before cell phones and pagers. I remember searching up and down every hallway and office in the two main buildings, but I couldn’t find him. The church was big, but not that big. My brothers and I would fan out and check different locations, but we still could not find him sometimes. When he did reappear, and we asked where he was, he would say he had to drive to the store to pick up something or was working in one of the smaller buildings out back. I didn’t think anything of it then, but youth is naive.

During my second year in high school, my dad suddenly quit working at the church. At the time, I was told we were hurting for money, and my dad needed a new job that paid more. I found out years later that a secret, second reason, existed— his pants disease had returned, and my mom was trying desperately to help cure him.

My mother thought putting him into a busier environment would help stop the affairs. For some reason, and perhaps one I’ll never understand, mom thought letting my dad do side jobs around the neighborhood was a good idea. Needless to say, giving him ample time to leave the house and drive to a stranger’s home did not help stop the affairs.

I was the youngest of three boys, and when I left for college, I knew their marriage would probably fail. My parents fought loudly for my entire childhood, and until I met my wife, I thought everyone’s parents yelled at home. I figured it was a part of being married.

In January of 2003, I returned to my college dorm to spend a week with my girlfriend before classes started. However, she broke up with me the following Sunday after the first week. Four days later, Thursday afternoon, my mom called to say they were getting a divorce and that she had thrown him out. What followed was months of sleepless nights, crying to friends, a tearful mother calling me on the phone for support, and learning to drink coffee. By the end of the semester, my brothers and I moved home.

My father had no interest in helping with finances any longer. The mortgage couldn’t be paid. So, my oldest brother, Jeremy, who attended Baylor, dropped out to move home and get a job. My middle brother, Nick, also moved home to get a job, although he failed out of college that same year. As for me, I started financial aid- a decision I’m still paying off today, 20 years later. Eventually, even with three adults working as much as they could, it wasn’t enough, and the house went into foreclosure. Mom begged my father to help pay the bills, but he refused. Jeremy’s truck payments went to creditors, and Nicholas would take the bus to work at an art store. Mom, unable to handle the mental strain, moved into a small two-bedroom house and left my brothers and me to take care of our home until the bank forced us out in August.

Since I’m disabled, and we couldn’t afford to get special driving lessons or hand controls for a car, I sat at home alone most days. I had the internet, a shelf full of DVDs and VHS tapes, and AOL chat rooms to keep me company. In what would be the last house I called home for a decade, we slowly allowed it to fall apart. My brothers were waiters and would work until midnight or later. The most I heard from my father were messages from my angry and somewhat mentally broken mom.

One day, during the summer of tanning on the roof and playing drums until 1 AM, my dad’s lawyer informed us my dad was allowed to enter the house and gather his things. These included pictures, records, and any tools from the garage. Little did he know, Mom made us clear the garage into a dumpster months earlier.

So, at long last, the day came just a few weeks before my next semester. Mom left the house, allowing my brothers and I to face him alone. It would be a lie if I told you I could fully recall that hour-long conversation. I don’t remember much at all. I sat on the couch while my dad stood. Nick sat on the couch to my left, with Jeremy in a chair in front of me. After an intense and tense conversation, my dad refused to take responsibility for any of his actions, like allowing our home to be taken away. Having enough, my middle brother walked upstairs and sat outside on a small second-story balcony. He rummaged through the house for his things and walked out our front door to his truck.

After 20 years, it came to an end. No goodbye, hug, or I love you.

My final vision of my father is a red truck speeding down an empty street lined with houses. Nick, seated by me, simply stated, “There he goes.” Running after the truck, Jeremy tearfully screamed at an unlucky neighbor who happened to be outside, “Better say goodbye because he is leaving our family!” That statement—leaving our family— was more accurate than I knew.

Weeks turned into months, months into years, and years into decades. During that period, Dad came to see Nicholas a handful of times when he started working at a clothing store. Feeling trapped and ambushed, Nick told him to stop coming by or calling. Jeremy, probably the most hurt of us three, never heard from him again.

As for me, he wrote me a letter a few years later when I was working for Apple. He dropped it off at the store by hand on a day I wasn’t there. I didn’t read it.

Zero to twenty, twenty to forty-two—the great divide of my life. Looking back, my brothers and I always state our history comes in two parts. Before and after Dad. I don’t even have a picture to use in this article because he took them all that day he drove away in the red truck. While I was on the balcony, he walked through the halls, opened picture frames, and removed photos of himself. Not only did he remove himself from his marriage, but he stole our memories of him, too.

Photos are supposed to help moments live on in our lives forever, but with those photos gone, all I have is fuzzy memories that fade over time. Kid pictures are all he has of us. But he can hold that photo and remember it. He stole that right from us. I hope he enjoys the memories of children who no longer exist and have long since grown into men with their own children.

My brothers and I sit around the table at family gatherings, like Easter, and talk about him as if he had died — camping, affairs, sports, losing our home, playing in the church, driving away in a red truck. That’s all I have.

An alternative band named Everclear, which had daddy issues in the early 2000s, wrote a song called Father of Mine. The song is still played on the radio every few years, and the lyrics are as pointed today as they were then.

Father of mine
Tell me, where have you been?
You know, I just closed my eyes
My whole world disappeared
Father of mine
Take me back to the day
Yeah, when I was still your golden boy
Back before you went away
I remember blue skies, walking the block
I loved it when you held me high, I loved to hear you talk
You would take me to the movies
You would take me to the beach
Take me to a place inside that is so hard to reach