So, I know it's been a while since I've written anything, but let me explain.... It's been a weird couple of months.
My father died last month. Yeah. Exactly. It was such a strange thing to hear. It was the middle of the day, I was just sitting at home and reading (read: watching TV), and my sister calls me. This is not abnormal. Since the time that my sister and I got closer we talk a few times a week about nothing. I really thought nothing of it. When I answered the phone, there was no chit chat. She just dropped it on me. As soon as the words came through the earpiece, "Dad died yesterday, " I could feel my pupils enlarge. I stared around for a moment in silence. I didn't (and still don't) fully know how to react to the news. The man has been absent from my life for the past 25 years. The last time I spoke to him in 2004, he was busy saying terrible things about my family to which I responded that if he continued, I would take no part in the rest of his life and would not perform my duties as his only son upon his death. That conversation is the first thing that came to me after my pause, but more on that later.
I was so conflicted. The man was basically a stranger to me. I know the evils he had done. I have some vague happy childhood memories of spending time with him. I remember his voice. I remember the specific way he pronounced my name. I remember that he used to call McDonald's McDougal's for no real reason. But those memories are so distant. What I really remember? What I remember about the man that is my father is the pain he caused my family. The pain he caused my mother. I have such vivid memories of my mother and father SCREAMING at the top of their lungs when I was young. I would be so afraid (I was <5) that I would hide in my father's closet until my sister saved me when it was over. I remember how much he revered having a son and how much he basically ignored having a daughter. I remember that he desperately wanted us to call him "Bapi" or "Baba" but I'm careful not to even refer to him as "Dad." I remember that my sister, my mother, and I would walk into my room (which was now his permanent dwelling) and more than once was screamed out of there. I could only get a gimpse of his state. I was too young to understand why there were milk jugs of (what I thought was) lemonade surrounding his bed. Why was he always naked? And why did the room ALWAYS smell so bad. For a four year old, this is all too much to process. Only NOW reflecting back am i able to decipher this scene brought forth from my memory. I remember that when he used to visit me, I would always get a trinket or toy. Even at that age, I felt like I was being bought and knew better. Strangely, I remember his enormous white Chevy Caprice with the Cookie Monster sticker on the back bumper.
That is really all I have. Sure, I have a few positive memories here and there. I remember right after The Karate Kid came out, him and I would hold karate tournaments in our living room. Ha. Maybe that explains my obsession with that movie series. Or maybe it's just one of the greatest movie franchises in the history of movies. Either way. I remember our MacDougal trips in which I basically had free reign over what I ate and how much tim time I spent using the amenities they had available. I even vaguely remember him helping me with some math homework (boy would he be disappointed in the awful mathematician I've become). For the most part, these tattered memories are all I have of my father. An ocean of negativity dotted with small buoys of kindness and an inkling that on the inside, he may as well have been a good person. If only THAT person one the conversation in his head every day.
Unfortunately it didn't and by the time I was 6, he was basically gone from my life.
I'm going to skip ahead in my life as to skip the more important questions that arose because of my father.
I made a lot of mistakes when I was trying to grow up. A lot. Probably more than my share. Every time something would go wrong, someone would always murmur between their breath, "he's just like his father". Sometimes if my behavior was bad enough, someone made sure I head the comparison to my father. I don't know what they were trying to accomplish. Maybe trying to get me to stand up and 'prove them wrong', but that's not what happened. Every comparison to my father sunk me further. That combined with OTHER external forces acting against me that at the age of about 18 when a family member climbed over a second story balcony to break into the house and instead of unlocking the front door to let my mom in, he spent the next approximately 4 minutes kicking down my locked door, finding me sound asleep (I had been quite ill that week and took some Nyquil to help alleviate some symptoms and was SOUND asleep), analyzed the situation and decided that the best course of action was to kick me so hard in my sleep that I wake up in a panic and immediate urinate on myself because I didn't know what was happening. The funny thing is, when my wits returned to me but before I recognized my assailant, my first thought was "What did I do?" instead of "Are we being robbed?" or "Has an insane person broken into our house" I'd become so accustomed to this sort of treatment, I assumed it was my fault. Anyway, I digress.. After the night that I got the shit kicked out of me for basically being sick, half asleep, and accidentally locking the door leading to the garage with the lesson of the night becoming "Paulash needs to be more aware of his actions", I guess I decided that the murmurs and backtalk must be true. I always worried that I would not amount to anything because of the unique combination of biological AND environmental barricades and at this point, after that night, I confirmed it in my own head.
This was the legacy of my father. Or at least, it could have been. I spent years trying to reconciling this with people trying to tell me how smart I am and blah blah blah, but nope. I was destined to leave this world in a blaze of unglory. Couple that with my mysterious illness and I figured I woudn't make it beyond 35. I told people this. I lived my life like this. Indulging in pointless 'now' pleasures, not preparing for tomorrow. At age 31, I am approaching my old doom's day line authored by my father and the genes he past on to me that guaranteed my failure.
Of course, that's not my life now. In fact if you ask my wife, she'd probably tell you that how far I plan into the future and how much I concern myself with our happiness in terms of years creeps her out a little (we are only recently married and I already negotiated the names of our potential children). What made for the dramatic turn around?
A friend of mine saved me and she probably doesn't even know it. I'm not sure I ever thanked her for it. While on a downward spiral, wallowing in my own self pity and wondering why I was subjecting myself to all these testing if I'm destined to just be a fuck up.. Why? She answered me very calmly that what I become is essentially my choice. But I'm too much of my father. She then inspired me, internally. She likened the traits of my parents into basic baking ingredients and said that adding as much of each part of my father and mother to create me in the way I want to be. Sure I understand that was oversimplification and that it does nothing to explain heredity and whatnot, but for the first time in my memory, someone told me that I could actually take aspects of my father and STILL BE WHO I WANTED TO BE. This was the first time I had ever heard that. It was absolutely liberating.
From then on, I was on a mission to better myself but then was derailed once again when I fell majorly ill about 5 years ago. I'm just NOW climbing out of that hole. As difficult as it has been, I'm optimistic. I have all the tools in my possession to bring my life to where I think it should be. I gave up some time to illness and some more to idiocy, but I plan on regrouping now.
I declare that in ten years, I will be where I want to be in every aspect of life. Sure I'm farther ahead in some aspects and not others, but in 10 years, I will have taken our family name to heights that I want to see it. Our family name in this country will garner respect, love, and compassion. People will count on us because we are worthy of their commitment. Ten years. That's not a lot of time so I better get started. You should stick around, though. It's going to be one hell of a show.
