Here be (boring) dragons

After talking about the part of the journey that I started with my father, it is now time to write about where it all ended and the things I will never forgive.

Thursday

As I mentioned in the previous post, my father was a car seller, but he was also a mechanic (something about fully loving cars) and from time to time he helped his team. It was a Thursday when a tiny piece o metal slammed his hand whilst holding a car door. All that was left behind the accident was a simple and tiny cut. A silly stupid thing that many of us would cure with some spit on it.

That very night, he started having a high fever.

Friday

The G.P. made a prescription for some general antibiotics, and life continued forth. Despite the antibiotics, the fever continued to rise.

Saturday

After days of very high fever, Saturday was the day the ambulance came and took him to the hospital. I didn't go with them as I had to take my brother (who was 3 at the time) to our grandparents. I didn't visit him that day.

Sunday

Sunday came, and I went to play with a friend of mine. I've always been quite independent, even when I was a kid. I didn't visit him that day.

Monday

Another week started with a Monday and I went to school as usual: around 10 AM I was asked to get outside the class, just to find my mother hugging me – she isn't a hugging type – so I immediately understood something was wrong. They said to get all my stuff and get ready to go home and to this day, that felt like the longest trip I ever had; she told me my father went into a coma during the night and that morning he passed away due to complications and, she added, he whispered my name with his last breath or so it seems.

What I won't forgive

I'll never know if that was an apology or he was lucid dreaming of arguing with me. But this isn't the thing that I won't forgive, no.

What I'll never forgive myself is not visiting him.

Even though we weren't on best terms, not visiting him or saying goodbye destroyed me from the inside out for many years and sometimes, still do.

I've been stuck my whole adolescence in depression, all because I couldn't forgive. I couldn't forgive myself for not being there. I couldn't forgive myself for my sadness and rage, that tore down day by day the relationship with my mother. I couldn't forgive him for leaving my brother alone. I remember that period as the most intense emotional vortex, cristally clear.

But the future lies ahed

Almost 30 years have gone by since that day and pretty much like the wind, that could erode even the solidest rock, time has eroded me into who I am today. I've grown since that day, and while the unforgiving guilt is still within me, I chose many years ago to not be destroyed by it but using it instead as fuel for the furnace of my personal growth.

I'd love to go deeper about my life philosophy after all these years on Earth, but let's keep all of that for another post. About my father, what I've learnt and I live by is that

Everything deserve a moment of your time, may it be a person, an animal, a plant, an object. Every moment spent thinking that your time is too precious to waste is in fact a wasted moment.

#Past #Depression #Father #Family

The journey into the adult life is basically moving on uncharted areas of the map. And there, there be dragons.

Alex