A Letter to My Dad

  One of the first memories I have of my father centers around death. He had been showing me an episode of his favorite show, Doctor Who, and one of the characters had been killed by a space alien of some type with multiple eyes and scaly skin. “What happens to them now?” I  asked him while pointing at the dead body on screen, not really sure what death meant or the permanence of it. It took him a moment to answer. “I don’t know,” he responded, and I instantly moved my eyes up from tv to look at him. I was an inquisitive kid, and there was never a question I asked that my dad didn’t immediately know the answer to. The fact that he didn’t know what happened after death scared me and made me uneasy, to the point I didn’t want to finish the episode. Hours later, after I had eaten my dinner and finished my homework, I sat in bed thinking about death. Death, I decided, was scary and unwelcoming and I didn’t want to ever think about it again. And for a while, I didn’t. Six months later, however, my grandmother died. 

Her death signaled a lot of change in my life and a loss of a lot of innocence. She had been my favorite playmate and closest friend, and life was different without her. Not only did her loss affect me, but it also affected my entire family. I know that in reality, my dad had moved out of the house a few months before everything happened, but I don’t actually remember him being gone until after her passing. He was still there to pick me up from school and wish me happy birthdays, but it wasn’t the same. Things felt strained between us, and even though I was only six I could feel him pulling away from me. My mom, in contrast, was struggling to make ends meet paying for a house by herself, and she quickly decided we were going to move. We packed our things and moved two hours away, effectively giving my dad an excuse to stop speaking to me. On the very few calls I’d get from him, he would say he didn’t have the money to come visit me or a place to stay, even when we would offer him my room to sleep in. He said it was too painful for him to see me, knowing he wouldn’t be able to take me home, and that even if my mom was ok with him having me for a weekend, he wouldn’t be able to provide for me in the way he would like to. I bought it full-heartedly.

Before I continue, I think it’s necessary to say just how important my dad was to me. I held him to a particular reverence in my mind that few could compare to, similar to how one would a god or a cult leader. In a way, he was my god and he was a cult leader because I idolized him so much. The way he thought and acted was otherworldly to me, and when my mom would ask me who I loved the most in the world, I’d always say him. Every word he spoke felt monumental and life-changing, each happy look bestowed upon me a gift. His very presence was enough to make a bad day into a good one, and I definitely had an unhealthy complex surrounding him.

That’s why it was so difficult for me to handle life without him when we moved. I remember thinking I was going to have a mental breakdown of some sort without him near and I cried myself to sleep often.  My father, for all intents and purposes, was like a dead relative to me, still loved but never around. I wish I could say I hate him for all the pain he caused me, but it’s hard for me to when I still love him so deeply. I’m terrified for him now, in the midst of this pandemic, because he has so many pre-existing conditions. I am acutely aware of what could happen if he got coronavirus. It’s weird for me to be scared for a man I barely know, yet here I am, constantly thinking about him and writing out never to be sent texts in hopes that one day I’ll have the courage to reach out. Unhealed wounds are being reopened as I sit in my room, wondering about his life, and all I can do is hope he is okay.  

I worry that our relationship is ruined beyond repair and that even if I could manage to reach out, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. My emotions surrounding him are complex and torn, and I am unsure of what to think and feel. In a way, I feel like he is already gone to another world and that the being I am worried about is simply just a vessel in which his soul used to inhabit. The man that was my father still looks the same, yet it’s hard for me to still call him dad when he hasn’t been one for years. I’m not sure what I would do if he were to get sick, but I know it would be difficult for me to handle because underneath all the hate and anger I feel, he’s still the man who once ruled my world.