I have come to dread this time of year because of you. Everywhere I go, I face the constant reminder that you were never what was promised to me. Televisions buzz with advertisements for Father's Day, encouraging people to go out and purchase gifts that their dads deserve. Images of tool sets, grills, flannel shirts, and record players flash across the screen. Most of the time, I pretend that I'm not paying attention, but the reality is that the ad is somewhat successful. I am thinking of what you deserve, and of all things, you do not deserve to be my father.
I can't imagine the amount of times that I've thought about what I would say to you if we were to speak again. I've played out scenarios back to back, wondering what you could ever say to me, and what kind of excuses you would fabricate in an attempt to make it someone else's fault besides your own. Regardless, the scenario that is by far the sweetest is the one where you have to listen to every word that I have to say.
When I was little, there was no end to the blind admiration that I had for you. I wanted you to be proud of me. You were the man who helped bring me into this world, and from a young age, I craved that sense of relation and belonging that I thought would come from family. Inevitably, I was wrong.
The classic back and forth of "he said," and "she said," that comes with having divorced parents turned out to be my mother's way of trying to warn my brother and me. She was all too familiar with the pain that would come as a side effect of knowing you. And despite your accusations, she still continued to do her best to facilitate a relationship with you. Even though she knew what you were, she never wanted us to feel like we were robbed of a father. She hoped you would change for your children. She gave you a chance that you should never have gotten, and you sabotaged yourself from the very beginning.
With time comes growing older, and I realized how toxic you were. The man that I idolized was washed away in alcohol-infused stupor and rage. Your true colors finally began to show under the facade that I had laboriously built for you in the first years of my life. I no longer recognized you. More importantly, I understood why my brother stopped seeing you, and why my mother fought so hard for us.
Our last conversation is one I will never forget. I can still hear your voice, and how unfazed you were when you told me that you would not accept who I was. We hadn't spoken to each other in years, and hearing you speak actually made me believe that the kind man I once knew would return. Perhaps I was wrong, and you had the capacity to change. But giving you anything, even my hopes, remains one of my biggest mistakes in life. You told me that it would be our final goodbye, and I soaked it in. My mouth moved to form our final "I love you." Before I could speak, you told me to "take care," with a coldness that left me numb.
For so long, I wanted to know my father. I wanted to see parts of you in myself. But now, I constantly work to avoid recognizing a single similarity between us. I try to convince myself that my eyes are definitely a lighter shade of brown than yours. When my barber or hairdresser compliments how thick and dark my hair is, I try to think of someone on my mother's side of the family with similar characteristics. I notice the clenching of my jaw when I'm working, and try to forget how yours did the same when you gripped the steering wheel in traffic.
You do not deserve to be my father. You have missed out on so much of my life, on what has shaped me. But you do not deserve to know who I am, nor the person that I will become. And as long as you remain so full of hatred, I hope that you know how much more you will miss out on. You will not know your children, grandchildren, and you will never understand how to love.
Happy Father's Day.
