Long-time readers of my blog know that I am a survivor of child abuse. My biological father, Robert Miller, let me know for the longest time that I was a product of him not totally understanding the rhythm method of birth control, and I do recall several moments of emotional and physical abuse from my early days until I was five years old, when my parents finally split up.
I also remember my mother marrying someone else, John Bailey, and his violence was fueled by alcoholism and racism and Vietnam War flashbacks. It got so bad that at one point I actually tried to leave my mother and stepfather, and go live in Boston with my father and stepmother. Yeah, I was a truly fucked up kid.
Somehow I made it to adulthood, and through all the adventures after that, I still remembered what those two men did to me. And when my stepfather passed away, my emotions ranged from relief to anger. He damaged me and he got away with it.
Then, in 2019, I found out that my biological father – who was now living with his FOURTH wife in Utah – had passed away. I found this out TWO MONTHS after he died. No one had the courtesy or decency to let me know what happened. That son of a bitch did his damage to me and HE got away with it.
Between the two of them, I suffered tremendous trauma and pain. And it was magnified by other family members who attacked ME for daring to say anything hurtful against someone they thought was a saint on earth. To the point where I refuse to talk to those family members, even when they try to contact me on social media. I may not have been the ideal person, but the damage they did to me – while I’ve dealt with it and mitigated it over the years – is still toxic.
I deal with these flashback memories. They’re like razors on a tapestry. I won’t touch a drop of alcohol outside of a sip of ecumenical wine because John Bailey fueled his Chuck-despising anger on cans of Schlitz. I still deal with feelings of inadequacy and imposter’s syndrome because the most blistering thing Robert Miller ever said to me was, “If abortion was legal in 1963, you wouldn’t have been my problem.”
And through today, I’ll see a ton of social media posts honoring my friends’ fathers. And I’ll respect that. Their experiences were nowhere near what I went through.
I’ll just do what I normally do on Father’s Day. I’ll grab my camera and go photograph something. Anything. Even something I’ve photographed twenty times before. I don’t care. I just need to do this. I need to get away and clear my mind of all the poisons.
And I’ll work through all my anger and depression and angst and pain. I have to. There’s no other option.
I’m here. They’re not. They did their damage to me. And I don’t want to hear anyone saying that I deserved the beatings and the torment and the pain. Because I’ve heard that as well. I’ve heard the “Oh, he hits you because he loves you,” or the occasional “Well, if you worked harder in school and got better grades, you wouldn’t be such a disappointment,” or things like that.
Just because there’s a thing on the calendar called Father’s Day does NOT mean I’m required to blindly and fecklessly honor those men just because one donated his sperm to create me and another one married my mother.
No. Not today.
Not ever.
Chuck The Writer 
A prime example of why phoney, made-up ‘holidays’ should be dropped into history’s dumpster; not everyone has good experiences around these celebrations of corporate greed. If there was someone special in your life, you do not need society to hang a label on a particular day to commemorate that fact. The good people are always on your mind and in your memories. So are the bad.
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