Fathers Day

No matter how much time passes and how much growth I've completed, there is still a handful of things I haven't quit figured out how to forgive myself for. I'm sure you're with me. You might be able to breeze past that guilt on most days. Maybe just a few. But it always has a way of showing its head somewhere down the line. Can't run away from it for ever.


One thing I haven't forgiven myself for is what I've put my heart through. I've wrote about it almost too much and its still struggling. Some days I wake up and check my pulse to make sure its still there. It is. Its just beating for someone in a different world, in a different relationship and who I'll never be with. Forgiving myself for that open soar is going to take years.

But today I'm beating myself up for something more important.

I remember when I was 10 and the holidays were rolling around. My dad had taken my brother and I to the mall to do the Christmas thing and let us get presents for each other. Clouds were shedding pounds of snow at the time and it was rough to even drive down the street without getting stuck. We pulled into Sears. My dad turned off the car and put his head back on the seat. I knew he wasn't having a good year. He had just lost my mother, just battled cancer for a year and a half, just got out of a relationship where the woman cheated on him the entire time and was now fighting off a nasty case of pneumonia. He turned to us and said

"Guys, listen. This year might not be as special as others. But I'm trying. Honestly I am. I just dont know how much energy I have for all of this but I promise I'll try,"

he began to cough.

" Its been hard for me since your mom and now with the Carry thing and this horrible cold, this Christmas is going to be pretty taxing on me. So if we can just get along a little bit, that'd be helpful."

He looked at me, then lowered his eyes and said

"I know you hate me. But please just work with me this year."

At the time, this didn't really effect me. I thought it was good that he knew that I didn't like him and understood it. But as the years went on, and we got in fist fights and other disputes, this line got burnt into my reality. I felt like I sincerely hated my father.

When I was 17, we went through months and months of consoling. We got to the point where he didn't like me and I didn't like him. Plain and simple. And this couldn't go on. He was my last parent. I had to respect him. I had to love him. And he needed to know why it was I hated him so much. I needed to know why I hated him so much.

After those months, we figured out that I hated him because I blamed him for what happened to my mother. For how it happened and how we were told about it. He was the easiest target for all of that. And he understood.

Things never really got better though. I never really obtained a fulfilling relationship with him. And last year, when we relapsed on the violence between us, I felt like I had buried my dad. He became a ghost to me. And I tried my hardest to believe that.

This year, I'm back in his household. And he has done nothing but support me since we reconciled. Nothing. He hasn't shoved me into any huge decisions, he's let me heal on my own terms and my own time and he's been there for me to confide in and talk to. He doesn't even judge me anymore for my slip ups. So for Fathers Day, I asked him if he wanted to go golfing. Just him and me. And of course, he jumped on the opportunity. We had a good time, had some good conversations and played some pretty sloppy golf but all in all, it was time well spent. But even to this day, there is this underlying, eye dropping context to our relationship that reminds me that I dont think my dad understands how much I love him.

I've never really apologized to my dad the way I want to. I've never been able to tell my dad how much I truly appreciate him. Maybe thats just how our relationship is structured. Maybe we wont ever fully meet eye to eye. But he is a good man. Probably one of the strongest people I know. He's dealt with almost everything. On top of that, he's dealt with me. And I've been a shitty son. So shitty.

If there was a way to go back in time, I'd change a lot of things. But primarily, I would have tried my hardest to love my dad the way he deserves to be loved.