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We had a complicated relationship. That’s the most efficient and truthful way to say it.

He was my step-father, but he raised me from the time I was 2 years old. To me, he was the only father I ever knew and he was my entire universe. We had a special bond that to this day I do not think has ever really been replicated in my life, and probably never will. He recently passed away unexpectedly, and we were estranged. He was 67 years old. While I am not filled with regret, I AM sad. I am not sad for the reasons that one would think I am, but for reasons that are far more complex. Due to this, I am having trouble processing the loss correctly, and the only way I know how to even begin to do that is to write about my feelings. It will be cathartic. At least i hope it will.

My mother met him in Hawaii in 1977. She was a knockout of a lady from NYC, with an attitude to match. She was living in Oahu on the Military base with her then husband, Ronnie. She was 24 years old and working as a bartender/cocktail waitress at a military hotel bar in Waikiki Beach. He walked into the bar wearing cowboy boots, and she was immediately drawn to him. Most people were, to be honest. It wasn’t so much that he looked like a combo of Richard Gere and Harrison Ford, it was more the way he carried himself. He had charm, charisma, personality for days and the minute he walked into a room, people noticed. She noticed.

She took his drink order, and they started to chat. He asked her where she was from, she responded “New Yawk”, lips smacking while she chewed gum. He says “Oh shit, I am also from New York”. She looks down at his boots and says “Not with those boots you’re not” and walks away. He was hooked.

They fell in love, she left her husband and they got married pretty quickly. I was 2, and my older brother was 7. After they married, we stayed in Hawaii for a short while and then moved to Brooklyn, NY where my mother was from. This move would later become a major issue in their relationship as he never wanted to live there and always thought NYC was no place to raise children.

On the flip side, my relationship with my mom was also “complicated” and it was a bit more complex then just the “mothers and daughters” typical issues. When Greg came into our lives, he quickly became my superhero. He spent a lot of his time focused on me, and we grew to be very close. He and my mother had a temultuous relationship, at best. This is not to say there were never any good times, but there were more bad. They fought. A lot. This stress transferred onto my older brother and I and there were many nights of violence, screaming, me hiding and running upstairs to my grandparents apartment shaking and crying from the trauma of it all. I still have lingering effects from this, and not even 19 years of therapy could erase all of it. However, regardless of what he did, I always forgave him. In my young eyes he could do no wrong. I never took my moms side and I blamed and resented her for all of it.

As I grew older, I started to see and hear things. He would stay out all night and she would sit on the windowsill crying. He would then get dropped off in front of the house by random women. He started to inappropriately confide in me and would tell me about all of the [young] women he was cheating on her with and why he was driven to cheat on her. This only made me resent her more, honestly. By the time I was 10 years old, I hated my own mother. I hated everything she stood for, and everything she was. To me she was a weakling. She was mostly a stay at home mom, and I could never understand why she did not have a career or a real job. Her constant crying and drinking of wine disgusted me. He essentially poisioned my young mind against her. In reality, it was him who was a fuck up. She was not perfect, but he was the literal devil to her. It took until I was the ripe old age of 30 before I finally saw her as a human being and understood her side of the story, and I always felt guilty about that. My poor mother.

I digress…

He did my homework with me every single day, he taught me the value of a dollar, a career, a good job and education. He taught me how to be self-sufficent, driven and motivated. He taught me about all of lifes hard knocks and how to get back up when the world knocks you down, and everytime my mom would try to step in, he would demean her right in front of me. He woke me up at 6AM on Sundays so I could mop the hallway steps or clean out the pantry. He took me running every night for miles. I’d write an essay for school and he’d tear it up and make me do it again until it was perfect. Some would say this was all really harsh, but I did not see it that way. He also spent many years telling me that my mother and grandmother loved my brother more than me and that he was all I had. I believed every word of it, because I blindly believed in him.

He was also a neighborhood hero, packing all of the kids into our station wagon and driving them to the park to play football on the weekends. He was “Johnny on the spot” for whatever the neighbors needed or asked for. He did everything for everyone, including my grandmother and helping her to take care of my grandfather who had MS and was confined to a wheelchair. He cooked huge dinners on Sundays, cleaned the house, planned fun family outings and vacations. From the outside looking in, he was the perfect husband, father and son.

He had demons that he hid from the outside world very well. When you think of the worst childhood trauma stories you have ever heard or read about, his were 50x worse. He was the eldest of 4 boys, and his father was chock full of demons as well. He cheated on my poor grandmother, was a rage-a-holic. My grandmother had to work multiple jobs to make ends meet because he refused to and because she had to be away from home so much, my dad was left to take care of his brothers. They moved constantly, and never put down roots anywhere, so making good friends was out of the question. Stability was also out of the question.

He dropped out of school in the 8th grade, but before that he was molested by catholic priests many, many times, molested by his fathers friends, and his fathers mother. As he was the oldest, he bore the brunt of all of the trauma. He got into trouble and was forced to join the Marines at 18, he was then discharged from the Marines for reasons I never really understood. He was engaged to be married to a woman named Jenny, and she was killed in an auto accident 2 weeks before the wedding. Her parents buried her in her damn wedding gown and forced him to see that during an open casket funeral. The man just had it rough, and I knew every detail of all of that by the time I was 10 because he told me everything. He suffered from crippling insecurity, and had no idea what self-love was. His entire perception of love was based on his fucked up childhood examples of it. He spent every day of his life looking to be accepted, loved for who he was unconditionally and by the time he reached his 60’s pretty much burned every bridge, every relationship and died alone. It is a textbook tale of a bad childhood turned into an adulthood plagued with untreated trauma and drug addiction.

When I was 12, he got addicted to crack and left us a week before Christmas. He drained our bank accounts and left my mother with nothing. I also have memories of him doing inappropriate things to me, which I will not get into. He denied most of this, though. Honestly, I think it was just too difficult for him to accept how fucked up he was, and while he tried to be honest about his behaviors and mistakes, he was always just a little bit dishonest and played the blame game. Accountibility was not his strong suit. Nevertheless, I forgave him for all of it.

He spent the years between 1987 – 2024 on a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs. He started many businessness, and at one point was a self-made millionaire. He would work really hard to build his entire life, and then would go on a bender, relapse and throw it all away. I cannot count how many times he crumbled to nothing and then built himself back up. It was quite amazing, actually. He was brilliant and as I mentioned earlier, his charisma and charm took him a long way. But I would be remiss if I did not mention the amount of time I spent looking for him on the streets in Overtown and the shitty parts of Fort Lauderdale in my 20’s. Dragging him out of motel rooms, tents, and nursing him back to health. Being there for him and attending countless NA, AA and Al-anon meetings. Answering to his associates and clients when he would suddenly “disappear” for days on end and covering for him over and over.

I witnessed his epic downfalls and watched him rise up from the ashes every single time. His resiliance was something to be admired, honestly. There was always one thing that nagged at me, though… Everytime he fell, someone was there to pick him up and give him a leg up. His mother, his friends, associates, me, my friends. Because of this he never really learned about having to hit rock-bottom and crawl his way back completely on his own. I always told him that until that happened, he would never really appreciate his opportunities in life. I also believe that if someone continues to fuck up and the conseqenses of said fuck ups are not that life-altering, they never learn and will continue to take advantage of everyone around them. Why should they care? Someone will always save them, so it creates a weird sense of entitilement which in turn breeds a total lack of accountibility for ones own actions.

I spent the better part of 42 years forgiving him, helping him, and loving him unconditionally. He broke my heart over and over, and he played a huge part in mine and my mothers shitty relationship over the years. Three years ago I realized that I was nothing but an enabler and at 45 years old I FINALLY had enough and cut him completely out of my life. It was not easy because while I made that choice, it did not mean I did not love him. Quite the contrary, actually. In those 42 years I always justified his behavior with “But he had a terrible childhood”, “He has untreated trauma”, “He has a disease and it’s not his fault”. In 2021 he landed himself in the hospital because he almost died of an overdose, but yet continued to tell me he was “clean” and “sober” is what it finally took for me to wake up.

When I cut him off he lost his mind. He wrote letters to the founder of my company trying to get me fired, he spent every waking moment telling everyone who will listen what a horrible bitch I am. He went on and on sending novel texts to our family, his friends, people I did not even know. He sent me physcial threats, threatened to kill me in my sleep. The list goes on and on. Even through ALL of that, I still made excuses for him that he was “sick” and did not know any better. I almost broke in January 2024 when I was on a cruise ship in Florida. I was THISCLOSE to calling him, but decided to sleep on it. The next day I decided to keep standing my ground because I knew if I opened that door with him, I would once again regret it. Not to mention, after my mom died I felt a lot of resentment towards him for the way he treated her and how he broke her heart. Something in me just changed towards him when I lost her.

He died all alone with nothing. None of his children had a relationship with him, he burned bridges with so many associates and friends. He pawned everything he had and died all alone with nothing and no one at 67 years old. Part of me always had a sliver of hope that one day he would wake up and fix his life. I had HOPE that someday I would see him again and he would be OK. His death is so final, and while I kind of expected we would end up here, it still hurts.

I cannot deny that for all of his behaviors, he had a lot of great qualities. I would not be who I am today had he not raised me. He made me a strong, independent, firece, motivated and driven go-getter. I am proud of who I am today, and I credit him for a lot of it. Him making the person I am actually wound up causing me to make the decision I made to cut him off 3 years ago, and I think that is why it bothered him so much. I do not believe he hated me, even though he did his best to tell me and everyone around us that he did. You would not give someone you “hate” that much attention, so the joke is on you, Dad.

When he was good, he was great. The best, even. The best father, friend, brother, husband, son. When he was bad, he was terrible. After 67 years of a rough life, I sincerely hope he has found peace and is in a better place. That is allI can hope for.

Rest in peace, Greg Todd. You were loved more than you ever knew.