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When I was younger my dad was the "perfect" dad. He played Barbies with me, he gave me wheel barrow rides around the backyard, we'd walk to the local 7/11 and he'd carry me on his shoulders the whole way. Well, when I was about 7 he changed. He quit his job and just stayed home all the time. He started not going to my dance recitals or my choir performances because he always had something else to do that day. But when I'd come back, he'd be in his boxers laying on the couch asleep, just the way he was when we left. When I was about 9 he stopped giving anyone birthday/christmas gifts or cards. At age 11 he started not coming home every night, and he no longer wore his wedding ring. When my mother asked him about it, he told her that he took it off because "people would give him funny looks when he was trying to be nice to them." When I was 13 I had to go to the convenience store with him for something. While we were there I over heard him talking to the man behind the counter about his "ex-wife." When I asked him about why he said that he told me that he didn't remember saying it. Things got progressivly worse from there. He started drinking and I caught him smoking weed three times. He would also come home after being gone for several days and talk about his "sweetheart" at vons or the 99 cent store. He was also violent. Not twards us, but when he got angry he would throw or break things. Once I hit 14 he started to make really perverted comments to me. He would say stuff like "It's a good thing you're my daughter or I'd totally go after you." Or "I can't wait until you're 18 cause then you can bring all your hot friends over and it wont be illegal." He also told me that "If I swallowed the guy would love me forever." He never touched me in anyway, but he said those things.

My mom never left him because she didn't have the money. She was working as a teacher's assistant at my school. She didn't have a degree and was being payed very little. My father had been unemployed since I was 7 so she was the soul supporter. We basically lived from paycheck to paycheck. We were so tight for money that there were times were we'd have to go for a week or two with out electricity.

When I was 16, my mother had finally saved enough money. We left my father and she filed for a divorce. The divorce went really easy, especially since my father didn't show up to any of the court hearings. My mother has custody, and my father has supervised visitation rights at my mother's descretion.

It's been a year since the divorce and we haven't seen my father since. We haven't heard from him either. No birthday cards, not christmas cards. Nothing. The only thing we get is the child support check we get in the mail once a month, and he turned that over to a bill paying company so it's not really from him anymore.

I see him every once in a while though. He sits at the park across the street from our house and talks with the homeless people he's friends with who "live" there. I don't understand how he can just walk away from his family and just forget about us... I don't understand how he can sit across the street from my house every so often and not send a birthday card. I don't understand how I feel twards him. And most of all, I don't understand why it hurts that he doesn't talk to us anymore, even after everything he's done to us...