Long Distance Relationship

My parents divorced in early 1991 when I was 8 years old. In mid-1991, my dad left my mom and I for another life in Oklahoma. I’m not sure why he left, but until 1996, I was raised predominantly by my mother. I did spend part of the summers of 1993, 1994 and 1995 in Oklahoma with my dad. I distinctly remember always being happier with him in Tulsa than I was with my mother in LA.  I always dreaded leaving him at the end of each trip.  Those plane-side goodbyes at the gate were always excruciating. Of course I appreciated my mom being there, but it was tough growing up in those years without a father figure.  Finally, my dad moved back to LA in early 1996 after my mother insisted.  When he returned, I thought nothing of his absence because I was so happy to have him back home, but many years later confronted him about it.  Why would a father leave his 8 year old son? I know it wasn’t for a job. When I asked, he seemed put off by the question. He just said he “had to” and that being away from me was “hard” for him too. He would always say to me, “well at least we got to spend time together during the summer,” implying that those visits were good enough. There was no real justification or remorse.

My respect for him

Looking back at my dad’s life, it seemed like his very best qualities were also the reasons for many of his setbacks. For example, he was eternally optimistic about the future and always had a positive outlook, yet he often refused to acknowledge or was unwilling to learn from mistakes of the past.  He always had the very best intentions, yet he rarely used good judgement. He trusted absolutely everyone, yet people often took advantage of him.  He was never afraid of a challenge, yet he always took unnecessary risks with no regrets or apologies. He had a huge heart and I know he always loved me, yet his actions didn’t always reflect that. He was headstrong, always fighting for the “big win,” yet he often bet huge sums of money expecting to collect big so called “deals” no matter how absurd or unrealistic. This often led to broken promises, deception, manipulation and fraud.

Despite all this, I’d always believed in my dad throughout my childhood and well into college as any son who respects his father would. In my eyes, he could do no wrong.  I always defended him when others doubted him.  I trusted him with everything. I justified his actions, even the shady ones, but I never once questioned his judgement or confronted him. My dad saw the silver lining in virtually everything, no matter how dire the situation. I respected that.

A bad discovery

Things changed in late 2008 after I discovered my dad had stolen my identity to open (and max out) multiple credit card accounts and high interest lines of credit all in my name.  I found out about it after I tried to finance some new camera equipment soon after a photography internship, but was rejected. This prompted me to pull my credit report for the very first time in my life.  In it, I was stunned to find the total debt was just over $48,000, dating all the way back to 2000 while I was a senior in high school, just after I turned 18. It was eight years of identity theft and I had no clue any of it was happening.

I confronted him. I remember he initially seemed surprised that he got caught, but then he began to justify his actions. He got very defensive. Sitting across from him at his office, he opened a desk drawer and pulled out a stack credit cards wrapped in a rubber band, tossed them over to me and said, “these were to pay your expensive tuition.” Not true.  I had separate student loans for college that I signed up for myself along with financial aid throughout high school.  In reality, he was funding a fraudulent gold digging scam in the Philippines, an endeavor which ultimately cost him and his investors (myself included) just over two million dollars over the fourteen years that he was involved.  I knew about those projects well through high school and I’m ashamed to say even I supported his involvement for years. Again, I was a kid who trusted his father. I thought he knew what he was doing. Clearly I was naive and he took full advantage. I never thought for a second he was capable of such an extreme breach of trust. Even to this day, I’m still shocked by it.

Trying to move on

After all this was out in the open, I demanded he immediately stop using my credit to fund his foolish investments, accept his losses and pursue legitimate ventures to start paying off the debt. I knew he had it in him. He had ran a successful mortgage business for 30+ years and he’d been quite successful in the past. He assured me he would pay back what he owed. I believed him. Over the next few years, as I slowly chipped away and eventually paid off my (his) debt with some help from my aunt, he never once contributed. In fact, the suspicious behavior just got worse.  In 2013, he told me he’d been in contact with an “investor” from Ghana who claimed to come from a wealthy royal family looking to invest in property in Southern California. He willingly showed me the documents, wire transfers, bank statements, emails, contracts, all of which were clearly fraudulent. I begged him to stop, but even after his bank shut down his accounts due to fraudulent activities, he still insisted that everything was legitimate.

One time I dropped him off at the airport because he said he was traveling to Oklahoma for business. A few weeks later I found photos on his phone that were geotagged in Ghana, along with a confirmed flight reservation to Accra via London. I freaking dropped him off at the airport for that trip thinking he was going to Oklahoma! Why would he travel to Ghana several months after he promised he had stopped communicating with those people? I never asked why he went. In mid-2015, he began asking me for money so that he could “pay rent.”  At first, I agreed because I didn’t want him to get evicted, but then I saw that money I was giving him was being sent abroad by wire days later in the same amounts.

As it became more and more obvious my opinion no longer mattered to him, I stopped helping him because I knew I couldn’t stop him. No one with the slightest bit of reason could.  He began to alienate anyone who tried, myself included, which ultimately meant his only remaining “friends” were also his enablers. At one point I considered calling the authorities for his own protection, but honestly I wasn’t sure whether or not his actions were even legal. I didn’t want to throw him under the bus.

Our relationship continued to deteriorate, as did my respect for him. When he realized I was no longer in his corner, he became more distant and less “open” with me.

Back to Oklahoma for good

A few months later in early 2016, as we were having our weekly lunch, he told me he was “driving back to Oklahoma to live.”  48 hours later, he was gone.  I didn’t even try to stop him. A few weeks later his friend reached to me to see if I would up some boxes he’d left behind.  Inside those boxes, I found old photos of us dating back to the early 90s, framed sports photography prints that he had hung around his office and other items I’d gifted to him over the years.  How was I supposed to interpret this?

I gave my dad every opportunity to clear the air, apologize, ask for forgiveness (I offered it), move on, do something legitimate with his life, offer closure, admit that he was wrong, but he chose none of those paths.  Instead, he doubled down and left for Oklahoma for the second time as though nothing happened. By that time I’d forgiven and forgotten so many times I’d lost count, but I knew the relationship was damaged beyond repair. I made a choice to end communications with him.

I know a lot of his close friends think I was too hard on him, especially as he got older, but they don’t know the facts. Looking back, I don’t have any regrets. Maintaining a long distance relationship like we did in the 90s would have been far too painful, especially after all the things he’d done to me since then.

The last time I saw my dad was in November 2018 after we attended his sister’s memorial in Tulsa. Honestly I can’t remember if he even sat next to me for the service. The following morning, he drove me to the airport. It seemed fitting to say goodbye one final time at the same airport we’d experienced those painful goodbyes back in the 90s, only that time I wasn’t sad like I was when I was a kid. I was angry at him for what he’d put me through.

Since his accident last month, I spoke with him more times than I did over the past eight years.  Did we rectify things?  Certainly not, but I wasn’t expecting to. We simply got caught up, I told him what was happening in my life and on our last conversation, I told him we were okay, that I forgive him and that I was no longer angry. He just said “okay,” but I know he appreciated those words. In fact, just hearing my voice probably meant the world to him.  He passed away four days later.

Final reflections

This is a lot to unpack. I know some of you might think it’s wrong to share these private details in such a public way, but I did not write this to be vindictive. I’ve kept these secrets about my dad to myself for so many years to protect his legacy and image. It is not fair for anyone to expect me to keep all this internalized forever. I had to put this out there. I am so sorry to all of my dad’s friends and family reading this who never knew this side of my father.  I know these aren’t words you want to see about someone you love and respect.

To all the dads out there, here is some advice:

Always communicate openly with the people you love.

Face the difficult conversations head on.

Never be afraid or too proud to admit when you’ve failed.

Never steal from your child.

Never leave your child unless you don’t have a choice.

Value your child’s trust more than anything.

Never be afraid to ask for forgiveness.

Always know that trust must be earned over time.

It’s not easy for me to admit that I’m disappointed by my father.   It took years for me to realize the truth about him and it breaks my heart. I know things could have been worse, but things should have been better too. Way better. Despite his massive errors of judgement and his so-called friends who used him or enabled him throughout his life (you know who you are), I still think he was a good man and I believe he always had good intentions. He was never malicious. He never drank. He was never violent. The decisions he made, however wrong and insane, he made them simply because he wanted a better life for his family. He was too proud to admit that he’d failed, so he spent years trying to make up for his mistakes. For so long I told him if he wants to make it up to me, do it legitimately. There are no shortcuts in life.

I wish I had the foresight much earlier in life to see the warning signs about my dad. I wish I had done more. I just hope he is at peace with his two sisters and his mother.