How To Humanize Your Own Father
Anyone know how to do that? Hit my line if you have the answers...
For once I am asking you, reader, this might be rhetorical but stay with me, please. I would appreciate if someone wrote me an answer. I am having a tough time with this at the moment. And yes, I know that I can easily talk to my therapist about this, but I want a biased opinion. I want someone’s own set of morals conjuring up a solution for me.
When I tell you what my deal is, you might poke fun or say “Carrie, what the heck”
Let me preface with this. My father and I are not close. I can see him as I have gotten older, asking me more questions, all of his children. It feels incredibly painful and laborious to talk to my dad about my own personal life. He’s never done it too much as I grew up, so like why now? Why would I easily open myself up to him. What happened recently with my dad’s health is very concerning and it does make me worry, yes. I am not a monster, I have a heart. But something in me does feel closed off, I seem to struggle to ever console him. Not that it is my job or anything. But I feel as my father’s child, that is a task I can take on as I am now an adult. My father’s health is deteriorating, I am not gonna sugar coat it. He has MS and has been stuggling with that for over a decade. Not exactly when he officially got diagnosed, but it has been well over a decade since he stopped working due to it. Over the years I see how illnesses really have an emotional toll on a person. The person with the illness.
My father is becoming less and less mobile. I do not want him to end up like his mother, god forbid. But it has crossed my mind in the past few days. The window in my room looks out into the backyard, where you will usually find my dad. I catch glimpses of him just sitting there, wallowing, pondering. I feel bad. The other day, this has happened a few times, I heard him cry or hear a break in his voice when I called out to him. I am taken back when I hear it. Heartless even, as I do not know exactly how to feel.
I feel taken back as I am reminded that my dad is a person of his own. Feelings of sonder I guess is what I would describe it as. But this is my dad, so that’s why it feels much more complex and heavy, with ties of shame as I admit my sympathy for him does not jump out. I feel like a monster when I am taken back instead of feeling for him when I can hear him cry.
But was he ever there for me when I was younger and crying over something, anything? Not really. How about when I was at the lowest point of my life and I was truly convinced that there was nothing for me here anymore? No he wasn’t. He yelled at me, got angry with me, told me that this is just simply not how you should think. Bullshit, I think as I hear him say how he doesn’t want to be living anymore now. I can’t hold onto grudges, I have to be understanding. No parent wants to hear their child say they want to die…or take an attempt at it. I wish he would be compassionate, quiet, and gentle too. That is all younger carrie and carrie now wants from him. From both of my parents. But it will never come, not how I want it. Is it too late to change things?
Reader, the rhetorical question now I ask to you is: how do I now become compassionate and sympathetic for my father when it is so difficult knowing the dynamic of our relationship?
I apologize for dumping such a heavy topic on you. I really do want to hear what people have to say. If any of you can maybe relate. Maybe. I know I am not the only one who has felt or gone through a situation like this. No experience is unique now is it? I mean that in a good way, in a comforting way.
Now For Some of My Favorites ATM:
The “bean dips from Bacari
It is not actually bean dips, I’m just being funny and judge-y, I guess. I went to Bacari recently and we ordered this plate. Which I don’t think I ever got the last time I went. This plate is called the salatim. It consists of three kinds of vegan dips with a side of the softest pita. My fav of the three was the green one. It’s just a green pea hummus haha but it was delicious!
Malamente - Rosalia
Getting back into this album…. hehe
can she go back to making flameno music, please. Love Motomami dont’t get me wrong but this is art at its purest form…I really don’t know what that means but it felt right to say.
Rap World (2024) by Conner O’Malley, Danny Scharar
Will this ever come out? probably not. Shout out to the American cinematheque for having so many screenings of it though. Such a funny little period piece. I was laughing pretty much at the whole thing. This movie will make you nostalgic for the late 00s, but also definitely make you cringe at how we used to be at that time. It’s great!
That is all reader, THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH for making it this far. Have a great rest of your Monday/ week! Don’t forget to drink water and take the garbage out. See you l8r.
My father was a monster. He beat my mother, me, and my sister. He abandoned two other families (that we know of so far). He was cruel in ways that will make my breath short and shallow even now, fifteen years after his death. The day he died, I cried for hours. Never before or since have I cried so hard. His death opened emotional floodgates in me. A sad song can now illicit a grave sense of sadness, whereas fifteen years ago, it would've been someone else's emotional art that I was observing. There was nothing personal about it. I don't mean to wax woe-etic. It took me years after his death to grieve and years more to understand what was done to him to turn him into the monster that raised me. His father was worse to him than anything I ever experienced. It's a wonder he didn't end up worse, frankly. Forgiveness is just not relying on him to make things better. It's not relying on someone else to heal the damage they've done.