Musing

Dear Dad, 

I don’t know why, but you make it so hard to stay mad at you sometimes. Some of the worst things I’ve heard were said by you. Some of the scariest visions I’ve seen were things you’ve done. Yet ,I don’t get it. How can you show up and act like that’s not you? At times, you’re so different. You make us laugh and say heartfelt things. You act like you really do care. And I believe you.

Maybe it’s wrong to believe you because I know that things are an endless cycle of bleak hope sometimes. People get angry, things get said, things get broken, people end up hurt. I always always end up hating you for what you do. So many times I have sworn to never forgive you, to never call you ‘father’ ever again. I’ve hated you, blasphemed your name, yet… 

Yet you always find a way to once again be humane. And that is what makes it the hardest thing ever. I’m one of the most soft hearted beings on this earth. Holding a grudge is so hard for me, even when I set my mind to it. You always find the way to make things seem as if nothing happened.

What happens? Rage at ten o’clock in the evening, eyes ablaze. The scariest words and actions. Minutes inch by slowly as you lumber in and out among us, room by room, carrying and sharing a sense of dread with you. Then later on, much much later on, until lifetimes have gone by in the experiences you deal. You arrive as somber as a sea at midnight, like a crest falling on the shore. Rough in coming, yet subtle in recession. 

How somber you look

How repentant you sound. 

Yes, yes. It's all right. 

Yes,yes. I forgive you.

You show me the beauty of life and also its most harshest realities. I've been to the four corners of the world and back with you. We have come far, yet how much farther must be travel before this rough journey ends? Before we lighten the loads, smoothen the road, and quicken our step? When can we hurry up the apex so that we can put all this behind us, squaring our shoulders to take life on together?

That's new, isn't it? Take on life together. Not for me to conquer what you deal to me. But the two of us facing the world. No, maybe I don't see you so much as an obstacle any longer. We can't rewrite the words of the past, but the present right now is still ink that has yet to be drying on the page. Why don't we pen in a few good chapters for the road ahead?

It seems to be I always faced you with anger. Yet now, now I reconsider and choose to be civil with you. I've never given you the civil shoulder before, but I think you deserve it. Simply because, I realized that it has held me back from a good relationship with God. Staffing AE this year did not take away from the experience any less. We cried when we did the Passion Play, even though we could only hear things and not see them occuring. Holly and Kaysee and I...we bawled the entire time. All through my head was the only thought : I had to forgive him; Jesus died for me and it just isn't right for me to hate my father; just not justifiable.

But I have never heard you directly say you love her. Never. Sure, you say that you love all three of us and could never hurt us if you were thinking clearly, but that's when you apologize. And you never say that about her. Tonight, I didn't expect to hear that. It had me so taken aback. And maybe now I'm starting to see what everything is about.