There are those Too …


Do you have any questions about your father’s death ? I said NO.

But I cannot help but wonder, what was going on, in my father’s final moments. What was he thinking, what was he feeling, who was he thinking about ? And I wonder, if I was in any of those thoughts.

I cannot help but ponder the fact that, when my father proposed sex to my mother, in the backseat of his car, in that drive in, in New Britain, what he was thinking in that moment?

I cannot help but ponder, on the day I was born, when my father gave me the name of a soldier, who died serving his country in war, what he was thinking?

I cannot help but wonder, what happened, to the name of honor that was given to me, in the moment my father decided that, I went from honor to a mistake in a single breath.

My family believed that I was a mistake and should never have been born, went on for the whole of my life.

How does one move from the miracle of birth of your first-born son, to regretting ever conceiving him, and for the rest of his life, remind him, abusively, “Hey, I hate you, and I want you dead, and you don’t matter, and never will.”

I don’t understand how a human being can live in the space of toxicity and resentment for the whole of his life, and be justified in his beliefs?

I know how it happened. I was there. I lived this existence.

My father is dead. And I never got the chance to say all those things I needed to say, to defend myself, my honor, and my integrity.

Living in resentment and hatred only makes one seriously sick. It turns your heart into a stone. And separates one from, what we call, in sobriety, The Sunlight of the Spirit.

Hatred is a serious thing. It is objectionable.

For the whole of my life, my father never shied away from airing his views at home, in front of others, and beaten into his children and his wife.

My father used many words to describe “people.” Words we are hearing from the President of the United States.

I knew very early on, that I did not agree with my father, and I surely never used one of his colorful metaphors to describe my friends. I knew early on that I would never be like him, ever.

In sixth grade, I had one friend. Leighton. Leighton was from Indonesia and his mom and dad were from that region of the world that my father found objectionable.

Leighton had dark skin.

One day, Leighton came over our house after school, and my father looked at him and said, what is that Nigger doing in my house? Leighton had to go home, and my father passed a decree that there would not be any dark-skinned people allowed in our house, because God forbid, my white neighbors might see them.

Leighton was not black and he surely was not a Nigger.

I don’t think that you can go fight a war in another country, and not return home tainted by that experience. I don’t know many veterans in my life today. It’s not something I go around asking my friends, who are older than I am.

My parents lived in resentment. They lived in anger. And they lived in hatred.

My father wanted a cookie cutter American family. So he imported a wife from Canada. What she did not know then, could have saved her a great deal. But she assented to assimilation. I think she wanted a husband as much as my father wanted a wife.

Systematically, my father alienated each foreign family member from our family, but only AFTER they served their purposes, that my father and mother needed.

Namely, the services of foreign family, as baby sitters.

My father’s parents were taken from us when I was in eighth grade, a year apart. My grand mother had a debilitating stroke that took away her speech, her ability to walk, and all of her memories. She went from vivacious to a vegetable in one night’s time. A year to the day, my paternal grandfather went the same way.

When my father took me out of school, and flew me 1500 miles from home, hoping that just the visual of me in my grandmother’s hospital room, would rouse her from her stupor and that she would wake up, right then and there and be healed.

That morning, as I walked into her room, looking at the shell of a woman she had become, I was so shocked that I collapsed, and fainted. Hitting the floor like a rock, and I ended up in hospital myself for hours.

I think my father was so angry with me that whatever he had imagined would happen and then did not happen, he resented me for the rest of his life.

I wrote my brother the letter I posted here the other night. Admitting my amends for what I had done as a stupid twenty something.

My parents lived like elephants. They never forgot, hard things done to them. When one lives in the space of not being able to forgive, taints us and builds a shadow over us, that never goes away.

I will never be a man. I will never be NOT a Mistake. I will never be forgiven.

I don’t understand how someone who is human, can live within such darkness and then take that darkness to their graves.

Regrets ? I have a few.

Maybe I should have made that trip to say all those things I needed to say, that are all but moot points now.

There is nothing I can say anymore. And my friend Joe, said to me, after the meeting that, toxic people cannot be reached, and attempting such communication is pointless.

You just have to let it go and go on with your life.


There are two people still left in their world who hate me as hard as my father hated me.

Will that ever change? That answer is up to God and timing, and using the right words and doing the right thing for the right reason.

I think I did the right thing for the right reason.

We shall see …

A mass of life will be offered for my Father Sunday Morning, at the Anglican Cathedral here in Montreal. My friend and mentor Donald will be saying his mass.

It is the most spiritual thing I can do for a man who went to his grave hating me.

God has dealt with him. And like we all know, When we get to the Pearly Gates, we get the question, we must answer, and in the end, he probably got a long look from God, and then forgiveness.

May he rest in peace. A peace he never knew in his mortal life.

I hope, at least, it feels good to him, finally.

2 thoughts on “There are those Too …

  1. fivestringguitar January 13, 2018 / 12:33 pm

    heart wrenching post sir and woke up many things about my father that I hope to have the courage, as you have, to write about. Thank you for this


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