I stopped talking to my father. I had suffered a major heart attack due to a genetic problem I inherited from him, almost died. I was 27 at the time, and had a hard time dealing with it. I never really talked to him much about what I was going through, but one day over the phone (I lived across the country) he told me he didn’t want to speak to me any more because I depressed him and I wasn’t sufficiently taking his feelings about my health into account. Which I guess means he technically stopped talking to me. Except he’d periodically send me abusive letters and emails, which I just ignored. I never responded.

That was 8 years ago. He died last year. I went to his memorial and sat through having to listen to all his friends talk about what a great man he was... guy was a deadbeat dad who sat me down once when I visited him when I was 14 to explain to me that he had to make a choice between himself and the family he created with my mom, and he chose himself. Heh, and after my mom died when I was 23, when I’d speak to him he’d keep talking about her like he didn’t completely fuck her over. Ugh. Anyhow.