I'm sorry, xanga.  It's time for us to break up. 

I can give the multitude of reasons any person gives when breaking up with someone....we've grown apart, things have changed, I just don't love you anymore....well, that last one isn't true.  I've been with alot of you for the entire 8 years I've been on xanga, and I love you all dearly. 

My life has changed dramatically in the last 6 months.  I lost my job at the college.  I went through chemotherapy.  I fell apart and put myself back together.  My little girl grew up into a teenager.  I began writing a novel; it's 1/3 finished already.

These changes (and a billion more) are what leads me to archive my girlymac site.  You see, I'm no longer the person who wrote here so freely.  I have very little free time; what little I have I'm selfishly using for ME.  Chemo taught me that one.  When you sit in a room with people who are dying for different reasons and  you are all receiving poison in your bodies in the hope of delaying death a short while, it makes you reconsider your life a bit.  This summer has been a rebirth for me; without a job to occupy me I've hiked and rafted and lived my life.  It has been so peaceful.

I didn't share my chemo story here, nor anywhere else as it was so violently personal that I couldn't write about it.  I would have shared it on Facebook, but one of my cousins flipped out and accused me of lying about my condition for attention....so I withdrew and endured the experience alone. 

I really miss my xanga friends....and if you want to keep in contact, you can email me at peggiodle *at* gmail *dot* com.  I'm on Facebook regularly, but otherwise I'm not blogging anymore. 

Thanks for 8 years, xanga.  It's been a good run.

I'm trying to make my xanga more attractive so I will want to come here.  I think I'm happy with this, it projects how I feel these days.

Yeah.

I'm dealing with a lot of feelings these days.....I feel lost in my own skin, so it's not just here.

...and he was my father.  I have spent my life wondering why he chose not to be a part of mine.  Unfortunately, it appears that question will  never be answered.  Yesterday, I was contacted by a kind person who found a forum post from 2000 on ancestry.com.  He recognized my father's characteristics as someone who lived with his parents, and contacted me.  After exchanging information, we realized he was the person I was looking for.  My father, John Charles Groves, born 1949, died two years ago.  He had not contacted anyone in our family in over 17 years.  The only contact I had with him (that I remember) was a series of phone calls in 1986.  We both cried on the phone when we heard the other's voice.  I was to meet him after those calls, but it never happened.

Today I am mourning the father I never knew.  I am so sad that I was too late to find him before he died.

My way of dealing with things is to write them out, so please forgive  me if any of this seems scattered.

John was born to my grandmother, Frances Moore, in 1949.  She had married my grandfather, Charles Groves, only a short time before she got pregnant.  Charles was a cook in the Army during WWII, and he came home to find his wife had left him during the war.....all she left was a divorce decree and a hefty monthly child support payment.  Somehow, Charles and Fran found each other and they married.  They owned a small diner in Douglas, Wyoming when John was born.  It wasn't until after Fran was pregnant that she found out Charles was dying.  He had a fatal liver disease, and drank heavily to ease the pain from his disease.  He died not long after John was born.  Fran was bitter towards Charles....his selfish need to let his name live on through their son left her alone in hard economical times.

 During their marriage, Charles' friend Chad was a constant visitor.  Chad was also in the Army during WWII, but he was captured and held in a Japanese prison camp...I believe it was called Corregidor but I'm not sure.  In any case, when he returned home when the war was over, he was painfully thin and haunted by the psychological damage the Japanese prison guards inflicted on the prisoners. When Charles died, Fran and Chad became close friends.  Chad was married, but his wife was a terrible housekeeper, cook, etc. so Chad spent all his time away from home.  At one time, he even asked Fran to talk to her about it.  Naturally, Chad left his wife and not long after, he married Fran.  At the time, Fran had a teenage daughter (my aunt Peggy) and John, who was not yet through puberty.  Chad had 3 sons and 2 daughters.  When Fran moved to the ranch after their short honeymoon, she found herself suddenly thrust into parenting Chad's sons.  The daughters chose to live with their mother.  Chad's demons came out after the ink was hardly dry on the wedding certificate, and he began drinking heavily.  Fran worked in the county courthouse, and barely brought enough money home to keep food  on the table.  If Chad worked, he lost the job quickly due to his alcoholism.  Things got much worse unfortunately....he began abusing Fran both emotionally and physically.

The details beyond that point aren't clear, but sometime during the late middle school/early high school years for John, they made a huge life change and moved to Anchorage, Alaska.  Chad's abuse continued, but spread to John as well.  Chad constantly belittled John for his asthma and allergies....calling him weak and worse.  Fran told me of a time when John took a loaded gun from Chad....a gun that was pointed at her.  That was the last time Chad ever threatened John, but Fran's abuse continued.

Sometime in high school, John met a young girl named Cathy.  She lived with her alcoholic mother and was her younger brother and sister's caretakers.  Cathy gave birth to a son just before she met John....a son she gave up for adoption as she had been raped by one of her mother's boyfriends.  She and John soon developed a close relationship despite Fran's protests.  She wanted a better future for John, and could see that he wouldn't achieve it with Cathy.  Fran was hopeful when Cathy moved with her siblings to Washington that he would get on with his life, but he decided to follow Cathy.  They were married when she was barely old enough to sign the papers herself....and not long after, Cathy was pregnant with me. 

I was born the day Fran retired from her job on the Alaska Railroad.  She has always called me "the best retirement gift ever."  Both John and Cathy worked several jobs just to keep a modest roof over our heads.  Not long after I was born, John and Cathy moved to Grants Pass, Oregon for unknown reasons. 

Fran always told me that John adored me.  He took more care of me than Cathy, who spent her free time smoking cigarettes and reading.  In her defense, she always held down more than one job to make ends meet.

After the move, they struggled again to keep us fed.  Cathy was never a good housekeeper, and John was used to a spotlessly clean house.  The less Cathy kept house, the less John would work.  At the height of their discontent, Chad and Fran decided to come outside (an Alaska term for leaving Alaska) and settled in Grants Pass.  It was around that time that Cathy and John decided their relationship wasn't working, and they split up.  Cathy kept me, of course....and John disappeared.  I was told by both Fran and Cathy that he was a part of the Gypsy Jokers then....he went by the nickname Crazy Legs because of his height (6'5"). 

Cathy struggled even harder to keep things together for us - she waitressed at the old Red Baron....sometimes working until 3 or 4 am.  I grew up with babysitters and became a latchkey kid once I entered school.  Cathy fell into drug abuse and alcoholism....the early years of grade school were a blur of different schools and different babysitters as her life spiraled deeper into the partying abyss.  Thankfully, she met my stepfather, Mike, in time to turn things around.  They married, and eventually he ended up legally adopting me.  Things were pretty good until Cathy started drinking again, this time becoming a full-blown alcoholic.  Mike was a long-haul truck driver, so he was very rarely home and never for more than a few days at a time....so when he was gone, Cathy buried her troubles at the bottom of cheap wine bottles and whatever drugs she could get her hands on.  This went on for a couple of years, but since we lived way out in the country no one truly knew what was going on.  That is, until Cathy had a car accident while drunk and nearly killed one of our neighbors.

The judge that presided over her trial "threw the book" at her, making her an example of  the new drunk driving laws.  She spent a year in jail, serving her time for attempted vehicular manslaughter among other charges.  I was rescued from Cathy's family by Fran.  I went to live with her and Chad during that year.  At first we lived in Brookings, but because Chad wanted to continue their winter tradition of snowbirding, we moved to Wickenburg, Arizona for 4 months.  I was always unhappy changing schools so often.  The only bright spot was I was able to communicate with John, which Cathy had never allowed before.  Unfortunately, I never got to see him face-to-face, only spoke with him on the phone.  At the time, he was living in Tucson, Arizona with his new wife and her son.  We were so close, yet never got to see each other.

Once Cathy was released from jail, she moved back to Washington to restart her life.  She entered AA, and insisted I be sent to live with her.  We lived a hard life....we had a one bedroom apartment which meant that she slept on the couch so I could have the bedroom.  She waitressed at a restaurant 3 miles from our apartment, and she walked to and from.  Not long after I joined her, she persuaded the owners to hire me as a mascot (I wore a lion suit and passed out balloons to kids).  I was 12, working 16 hours on weekends.  I too walked to work as we didn't have a car and Cathy had a 10 year hold on her driver's license as a part of her punishment.  We lived too far from a bus stop, and the bus lines didn't run close to the restaurant anyway so we walked.  We also didn't have school busses in the district we lived in,  so I walked 2 1/2 miles both ways to school.  In an average week, I walked 37 miles.  We never had any money as everything went to rent and paying the huge fine Cathy was required to pay to the state of Oregon from  her accident.

Cathy and I never found a happy life together.  I held it against her that we had to live such a hard life, even after she met her third husband Jack.  He moved us to a nice home and Cathy and I quit working at the restaurant.  I started working as a nanny and joined the drill team at school, so  I was never home.  Things were at least harmonious until Jack became ill with cancer.  Within a year of his diagnosis,  he was dead.  Cathy turned to drugs again, spending many days stoned out of her mind.  It became so unbearable that I ran away from home.  I hid out at a friend's house until I could find someone who would take me to Portland, where we would meet Fran and she would take me to Mike's home in Grants Pass.  Mike had heard of the problems Cathy was having and invited me to live with him.

It was during that year that I heard John was looking for me.  I had enough turmoil in my life adjusting to life with Mike's new wife and trying to finish high school, so I decided against meeting him.  Not long after graduation, I moved to the Oregon coast to take care of Fran after her cataract surgery.  I ended up having a few adventures and then settling back into life with Fran.  I married and gave birth to Faith.  By 1999, Cathy had died of a heart attack, and everyone in my family had lost contact with John.  I divorce my husband, and moved back to Grants Pass to start my life over.

I actively began searching for John in 2000.  I wrote messages on geneology forums and spent hours researching his name (John Charles Groves) on internet searches.  Fran and I even hired a private detective in hopes of finding him, but to no avail.  I worked  in government student loan collections for a few years, and even used the tools we had there to try to find John.  It was as though he had just disappeared.

Yesterday, I received an email from a person who had found a forum message on Ancestry.com I had written in 2000.  Nine years later, against all odds, this person reached out to me and let me know he thinks he knew my father.  We exchanged information, and soon it was clear that we had a match.  I was immediately exhilerated, and then struck with terrible grief.  I had written John off as dead years ago....even Fran thought he was dead.  He had not contacted anyone in our family since 1990, not long after Chad died a horrible death from diverticulitis. 

John Charles Groves died 2 years ago.  I am devastated that he chose to live his life without ever trying to find me.  I spent my life longing for the father I never knew.  Fran told me he was a good and kind person, and that Cathy had told him all those years ago that I was not his child.  I can see her saying that, she was a very vindictive and poisonous person when angered.  Fran says the only reason he would have given me up the way he did is believing Cathy.  Had he gotten to know me, he would see how much I am like him.  Fran says it's uncanny how I smile and make faces exactly like he did. 

There are so many unanswered questions in my mind as I write this tonight.  Why did he look for me all those years ago and then give up?  Why did he disapear from everyone's lives?  Why did he die alone when Fran and I missed him so? 

Tonight, I just want to tell my dad that I love him.  I don't care how his life turned out, what mistakes he made or things he was ashamed of.  He is my daddy, no matter what.  I want to tell him that I've loved him all my life and would give anything to spend 5 minutes with him.  I want to hug him.

It will never happen.  He is gone and my life will go on.  I will never be the same knowing that he is gone and I can't tell him how much he always meant to me.  I wish I could hug his legs as I did when I was a baby.

I love you daddy.  I wish you had given me a chance to show you I cared.