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

This is the part of the journey I took with my father.

When a man really loves a woman, they usually kiss and a baby is born. Sometimes, it's all about babies born under a cauliflower or babies delivered to the families by a stork, rather than the boring bees and the flowers.

But, I guess you get the gist of it, if you're at least 13 years old.

My dad was a car seller with a thriving passion for Rally (in fact he was a pilot and president of various clubs around the area) and my mom was a teacher with a thriving passion for Rally (in fact, she was a navigator) and well, you know how things go, so I'll fast forward this bit.

It wasn't a dark and stormy night when I was born, but rather a hot and sunny early morning in June; I came to this world and both of them did their best to raise me. Their best, I won't judge. While my mother was (and still is) with her feet well planted on the earth, my father rolled from one thing to another just to avoid being a parent. I cannot talk from experience, but I guess not everyone feel that urge to be a parent. He didn't, or at least he needed time to tune himself to that urge.

Anyhoo, let's fast forward again to my childhood.

Having said – or better, written – that he did not feel that parental instinct, things were a bit complicated growing up. I clearly remember the time we spent together as the most annoying thing ever, and I'm sure he felt that same way. We didn't click and we both knew that.

While he enjoyed being with his friends and their kids (mostly because I would be engaged with the other kids, although I was a bit of an introvert), the time spent in family felt like a sorta burden for him. Not that he despised it in the open, but he was angry all the time. And with him being angry all the time, for the life of me I cannot remember a single Christmas day or a family vacation in which I didn't cry after a futile discussion.

Could I have been too needy? Was I obnoxious? Am I broken glass and he didn't want to stay with me? I guess I'll never know.

Fast forward to when my brother was born, 10 years later.

My father – well, how can I phrase this – started being a father; not for me, of course, I was already gone, damaged merchandise beyond salvation. But for my brother, well, he was.

Although envious, I also felt glad he found it in him to finally act as a father. I loved my brother and I still do, so I'm glad he didn't have to go through what I did instead. Even though I continued going through all of that during family time, he wasn't. Glass half full, I dare say.

And in a snap, I was 13. And that's when it all ended.

#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