Dear Father,
Its been a few years since I have written you, on account of you being dead, and I busy staying alive and all. However, writing you a letter felt to me like something that I wanted to do. As luck would have it, in the midst of a deep conversation with my girlfriend about everything, she asked me if I ever wrote to you. That seems like a good enough confirmation for me to sit down and say hello.
You're dead. You've been dead for 20 years this month. Next sunday to be exact. The other day I stopped by to see you. I was pissed off that I couldn't find you in the dark. I kept thinking about how ironic it was that I couldn't find you, considering the fact that you haven't moved. After that I started thinking about the symbolism of my actions. A man holding a light stumbling in the darkness amongst the vast numbers of the dead, looking to find his father. When I finally found the plaque with your name on it marking the spot where you bones were, I felt nothing. I felt nothing as I wiped away the dirt and pebbles that get kicked up by the caretaker who drives by with the drag to make the neat rows in the gravel. I didn't feel much anything as I poured the water out and tried scrub some of the dirt from the letters, for those who may come to see you in the next few weeks. I stood there at your grave with nothing to say. My heart felt nothing and the nothing was what I found so peculiar. I remember how not even two full years ago I made little mud craters with every tear that fell to the dirt you call home. The hurt on that day was more than I could hold in, and I wondered why this one was different.
We packed back into the truck, my girlfriend still holding my hand and I thought for a second that maybe, just maybe, I was over it. The second that our tires tread upon the asphalt of the exit, so did the emotion leave whatever hidden place it was burrowed. I felt it all again. I began to recall all the things that I loved and cherished about you. Stupid things that I missed came pouring out of my mouth the way water trickles through a cracked container. I was telling my girlfriend about how bad your feet smelled and how you would ask us to take your socks off. I recalled how we would sit and watch football and I have no idea as to why you liked the redskins. The bears beat the redskin today by the way, but I think we both know that it doesn't matter for either team. I told her about that Malachite marble you gave me, and how I haven't a clue where it is now. I had to pull over because I was crying so hard I couldn't see. To this day I wonder why it is, that twenty years later, it can still hurt that hard.
I know it has that effect for Mom, Barbra, and Lory. I wonder what that says about the man you were.
What it says about the love you gave, the values that you instilled in people. I don't write you for answers, because, you're dead. I'm writing you because I don't know why that hurt still stings that way after so long.
I'm a survivor.
I was angry for a long time, because that is what you made me into. Not a boy who lived and grew. Who played and loved life. Not that. I was a kid that saw to much and dealt with more than I needed or wanted. I had to endure. I had to over come. Because you died I lost a lot. I was angry. When your heart stopped, my family broke. It took me a long time to discover that I was mad. After all, how do you blame a man for dying? My head sees reason that my heart takes as offense. I realize that God took you in an act of grace, that he brought you to him before you could stray too far away. I have come to the realization that if I needed to be mad at anyone, It would have to be God. But, how does one be mad at God, when God is the one that has been there since you weren't . How can I be mad at God, when I see His act as a kindness. ITs easy to be mad at you for screwing up my plans for a normal looking life, but it isn't easy for me to get upset when put things into the perspective of this being part of God molding me for his purpose.
I get how narcissistic this all may sound. I understand that. Yet, this stuff needs to be dealt with. Cards on the table, father and son type chat. But you're dead. You're dead and I am over being angry about it. I'm over being angry about it, and I am trying to stop being hurt by it.
I think freedom is important to everyman.
That is something that was emphasized when we marched in the MLK day parade. You remember that dad? No, you don't. Because you died. You are gone. Freedom is important to everyman. So, how do I get free from that pain that seems to be coded into my heart? I've prayed about it. I keep praying about it. I live in my head sometimes. My woman tells me that I carry things that aren't mine to carry, or that I don't need to carry. These things keep me from being free. I think about that.
How do I become free from you without being free of you? How, is a question I ask, knowing that the answer isn't going to come to me with the liberal application of thought.
I do not want to forget you dad. I just don't want to hurt over you not being there. I don't want to hurt over the fact that you have died. That you are dead. It happens.
Death happens to everyone.
Life usually preceded it though. And that my dear dead dad, is where I am. I'm trying to figure out my life. Living. Living life instead of surviving, loathing of death. In the past few months, if I had a dollar for every time someone told me that I have so much potential, I'd have at least 26 bucks. At 28 I am now trying to develop a dream. Dreams are something normal people have, and then they work at following them. Survivors do not have dreams, dad. Survivors "dreams" are to basically stay alive until you die. What kind of crap is that? I know I want to die on my feet... doing something interesting. I want to do something I am passionate about. I want to be passionate about something.
I joke a lot about punching a bear in the face as an ambition for my life. The joke is that win or lose, that is the toughest thing to come away from. Its a bright way to go out, or its a hell of a story to tell if you live. I realize that it isn't a joke at all really. It is a metaphor for what I want most out of life.
I want to conquer something worthy. Should it kill me, I die doing something worthy. Should I live, I will tell of what I have overcome. I just don't yet, know what my bear really is.
You're dead dad. I'm not yet. God has got to help me stop hurting about that.
Maybe that is the message. Some secret message that God is telling me in the deepest most mysterious way. That things that I remember; that cause me to hurt at the loss of, are the things that matter most in life, here and now amongst the living. That I should know that peoples rancid feet may be the thing that I miss about them when they are hit by a truck or drown or whatever. Yet still, in the beauty of that sentiment, death cast a shadow within the light.
I think for a while, if I can... I'll just take the light
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