Dad #1

I have a hard time writing about my father. We have a complicated relationship, but what I want to focus on for this post is that no matter what happened, I never gave up on him. 

I wondered a lot about if it was ok to write about him here, like from a moral perspective. I think it is. I am not telling his story, I’m telling mine. I’m talking about him from my perspective, from my viewpoint. 

There’s a lot I could talk about with my dad, but I think I most want to tell a story about something that almost fractured our relationship completely. So 2022 was our most difficult year as a family up to that point. We were very poor and we had a lot going on and were doing very bad financially. The year had taxed us in many ways and all of us were just emotionally exhausted. When it came to Christmas time, my dad posed something to us. Most Christmases, we would do charity work and my dad wanted us to do it again that year. We were telling him that we really wanted to just spend time together, but he wasn’t listening. He went to go do some shopping or something and then said that when he came back, we should have chosen which one we would do. We discussed it amongst ourselves and we decided that spending time together was the most important. My dad came home, ready to pick us up and go. We told him that we had decided to just stay home and spend time together instead. He said that it was not one of the options. That night, he went out to do charity stuff alone while we stayed home and relaxed, recovering from the traumatic year. I was very angry with him. That night was a very important step in my understanding of my father. Why did he care so much more about the people suffering out there in the world than the people who were suffering right in his own home? A few days ago, I wrote about someone named “Chuck.” I was talking about my dad.

It is a strange feeling to be disappointed in your own father, but I was and I have been many times. He is a good man, but he is also very flawed. I don’t know if he will ever see this. If you are reading this dad, I do forgive you. However, these things will still live with me forever and I think they changed how I see you. It’s strange to hold these two things in mind simultaneously, but it is the truth. 

I have more to say, but this is all for now.

See you tomorrow.