Good By Again

I was nearly a year before I learned that my father had died.
The last time I had heard from him was in early 2000.
I wrote a letter telling him I was well and alive and sent it to an address at the University of Tennessee where he retired. His reply was some what cold as he expressed his concern over hearing from me and stated that he did not wish to hear any further.
He did give a false address and phone number for my sister in Eugene Oregon. He also included a small wallet sized portrait of hiself.
In my letter, I asked about family photographs. Since he had always been an amateur photographer documenting every striking event, I infered that he might be able to share some of the archives of our joint family history.
One head shot was all I got.
He also criticized my writing as Victorian and demanded information about my college education which he had left up to me, ignoring the wishes of my uncle Horace Cecil Fisher who entrusted him with funds to see me through undergraduate school.
I did not take his inquiriy seriously since he had already stated that I should not attempt to contact him or my mother directly and the 'Victorian remark probably had to do with somthing I said in ninteen eighty four (1984.) just before I was married. I was attepting to help my ex (and only) girlfriend with her unplanned pregnancy.
The marriage did not last long.
Afterwards he 'took care,' of my wife. she was a welcome guest at their home and i was not.
We stopped speaking by phone in '87 or '88.
My sister would call sometimes and extract information from me. When I told her that i was uncomfortable talking to her when i knew that she would tell our parents, she announced that she was abused as a child and that i would pay for it eventually.
So when George Wheeler passed away in 2002, she never told me about it. she also put out obituaries that ommited my name.
I called in 2003 when I found out. and I sent a sympathy card to Margaret Wheeler. I don't know that she recieved it. eventually I talked to Alice. she seemed to feel that it was wrong of me to talk to my mother. She promised to send me photographs and a geneology that my father had been compiling. None of it ever materialized. Alice did send an old folder of school reports around Christmas time along with an old record of mine and abook that my father had given me. "Dreams in the Mirror," by Richard Kennedy with a dedication by the author "to a Physicist who reads." Alice later told me that she thought that I would like something of "Dad's" and she probably did not realize that he had given me the same book years before.
I'm still trying to find a fitting memorial for my father and also for myself, for the fantasy that I had where in we wold be reunited and be happy again, for just one holiday. It is about time that i buried that wish and moved on with my life.