My dad

I have never felt close to my dad. I do care about him and love him because he is my dad but I never had very strong feelings for him in any other way. When I was younger I was not close to hi because he was mean and I was scared of him most of the time. He believed in spanking and it was not just a spank or two. It was a huge ordeal of him screaming and yelling and then spanking over and over again...he even bragged that he would spank us over and over in the same spot to make sure it hurt. His opinion was always right no matter what. There was no changing his opinion on anything. His opinions were often stupid and were based on some stupid thing that he believed to be true. He was judgmental about all my friends and always had something rude to say about them. He would say things about how my friends dressed, the makeup they wore, how their parents raised them etc and most of the time he had no idea what he was even talking about and was just talking out his ass and proving that whatever he said was right. He loved to have power trips and tell us NO just because he could. He had stupid sayings that he would say over and over...and had stupid things that we were not allowed to say. We were not allowed to use the word hate because he said it was too strong of a word...We were not allowed to say that anybody was bad..like I could not say my brother was bad...I had to say my brother did bad things...this was just something my dad insisted on. He had this theory that if we said somebode was bad that it would make them start believing they were bad and then they would become bad ( ?????) made no sense to me then nor now. There were quite a few other things that we could not say. Another one was the word sorry....we could not say we were sorry because according to him it meant that we deserved to be punished...but instead we were supposed to say I apologize...made no sense to me then nor now...The worst part was not only did he make my brother and I obey these things but if friends were over he would insist they same from them. His words were this is his house and things will be done his way in his house...
Even with all the bad, the one thing I always did believe was that my dad was tough. He suffered from many different health problems but he always got better even when the doctors were not sure if he would. One of his kidneys shut down when he was 18, he had 1/2 a lung removed, his heart has been failing for many years, he had several detached retina surgeries and the list goes on and on. But, he always was tough and we used to call him a tough old bird. Sadly I think he is not tough anymore and that he is going downhill and I am not sure how much longer he will be around.
Even though I do not have that deep love for him that some girls have for their fathers, I know he does love me and always has and he does always say how much he loves me and how proud he is etc.
I sat here in my living room today and looked out my window. The handi-car drove up next door to pick my dad up for a dr appt....my tough dad has not even been able to drive for a few months. I heard the handi car beep its horn and I looked out the window to see if my dad was coming out of the house. I was very very sad at what I saw. I knew my dads health has been failing but I guess I just did not notice how much he has deteriorated. I saw him come out of his house and he had his walker. He moved so slowly that it took him almost 5 minutes to get over to the car. He was weak and hunched over. He could hardly get into the car. He needed help getting his legs into the car. I do not know why but just the site of this made me sad...sad that this tough old bird is not so tough anymore...and sad that I have missed out on the feelings for my father that other people have for theirs.
I wish that I could have the type of parents that other people have. The ones where I can share stuff with and we can act like a family and do things together. I guess there is nothing I can do about it except to make sure that I am the kind of parent to my kids that I always wish my parents were to me.