Dad – 3 Years Gone

Hey Dad,

Yeah, I know you’ve been gone much longer than that — like some 30+ years. What I mean is that today, not related to anyone’s birthday or a reminder of an anniversary, but just randomly, I realized that I’ve spent 3 more years on my lifeline than you did. 

I also realized  that I don’t have a feeling of pride, or arrogance or whatever that my lifetime walking breathing, thinking, has been longer than yours. All I would say is that I hope that my path has been worth it, to me, that I’ve been better at knowing myself than I was a year ago, two years ago, three years ago.

I can see the pressure of needing to fit into an over-arching belief system to feel some sense of support or connection. I have bucked that family (mostly) trend time and time again, and gone off on my own, here and there for a short term or a long term, following what I believed my heart wanted, on deeper levels that I wasn’t really conscious of but steered my ship true.

I see the young boy Harry in so much that made up who you were. That child had been frightened by the insanity of living with a World War I veteran father who dealt with the insanity of being in that war. That child, a part of you, as a father, gave up and was never really allowed or given that permission live fully in yourself. And young Harry wouldn’t have been that frightened bully who never learned emotional literacy and tried to pass that same lack to me. I wish that much, much more than half of our relationship could have been that.

You taught me that fear and tried to make me bend to it, because it was familiar to you. And so I see how much we are alike and I wonder if you had not met Mom, and wandered off to follow the intuitive heart, if your life would be something more like the way I live. Yeah, you could have more structure, but it is hard to have structure when the heart has nothing to ground it. I am looking for that more within now and letting go of the endless repetition of  doubts and fears in the echo chamber to be an artist. 

May I always give to another words of confidence to help them on their life path to develop their own agency, authenticity and Awareness-of-Self.

That’s enough. I don’t want this to be a novel just an expression of a mood/thought that happened today.