QUICK NOTE: This story explores the anxieties, worries, and insecurities that I dealt with and continue to deal with as a father to a child. I didn’t have the easiest childhood growing up and I often worry about falling into any of the same patterns that I saw adults in my life fall into. I worry about being a good dad. I worry about not being there for my child. This story is fictional, but the feelings, anxieties' and thoughts it explores are all real thoughts I’ve dealt with, worried about, and imagined in my head about me. I hope you’ll find this enlightening.
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“I hated him.
My whole life I spent hating that man. Since my earliest years the memories, feelings and thoughts I had about that man was nothing but anger and hatred. He yelled, he drank, he hit me and I couln't stand it. Growing up it was a constant stream of chores, yelling, beatings, and disappointment. I could have screamed with all the hate that had built up inside me. When he finally left the family and disappeared for awhile, I thought I would have the chance to work through this anger and hate. Then he came back a few months later, acting like nothing had happened. The anger boiled up in me again, hotter and thicker than ever.
Now I stand here, in this funeral chapel, shaking hands, receiving hugs, and listening to kind words given to me by strangers to this man. They weren't really strangers to him, but they clearly didn't know him. They knew how he was at work, or in school, or out with the guys at a ball game. They didn't know the man behind closed doors. The people who claim to have known my father knew a shell, a mask, a false face put on to please society. I am the one who knew the truth of who he was, of what he was.
I was asked, as the oldest, to give my father's eulogy. How do I do this? How can I say the things his friends are expecting to hear, while being honest about what kind of man he really was? Should I just stick to the couple of work stories I head throughout the years? Maybe I should talk about how he loved the red sox and always wanted to go to a World Series game of theirs? No. That wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be fair to the children he abused, the wife he cheated on, the lives he altered and destroyed with his lack of love. It also wouldn't be fair to the coworkers he lied to and tricked throughout his career.
My father was a problematic, evil man. His drinking started long before I was born and ended long after I left home. He beat me, he beat his children. I had to go to school, sweaters covering my arms and pants covering my legs, to hid the bruises and burns on my body. Why was I beaten? I dropped the beer from the fridge to the couch. I didn't get up fast enough from my book to go get the laundry out of the dryer. Why did I get burned? For the fun of it. I got cigarettes put out on me because I was, in his eyes, deserving of the pain and torment that it caused me.
My father loved the Red Sox. At least that is what he told people, when he took his many trips to Boston throughout the year. He would claim he was going to the spring training, or the draft, or he was sure they would get into the playoffs this year. But that wasn't what he was doing at all. It came out after he died that he was actually visiting his other family. Another wife, another son and daughter, people he didn't abuse, people he didn't harm. My mother was broken by this news when she found out. I remember holding her shaking body in my arms. A woman torn apart by grief was then further destroyed by the betrayal of the man she was grieving. I hated her for staying and I hated her for crying. But seeing her saddened and harmed by him made me feel so incredibly sad for her. My anger is not meant for her at all. Its meant for him.
My father also placed a great emphasis on making sure his coworkers saw him as fun, nice, and a good guy. But he wasn't any of those things. Not just behind closed doors, but even at the company where he worked as a CPA for 25 years. Check your books again and you'll see: he has embezzled millions out of your company. Stolen millions of dollars to enrich himself and his hidden, more loved, Boston family.
There were many reasons that people think they should love and revere this man. None of them are true. He was a bad man. He was an evil man. I hated him. And now, we are free of him.”
Jason, still shaking, stepped down from the podium and walked past the table where the black urn sat, holding his father's ashes. He spat on the urn, leaving a slick trail of water winding down it. Gasps, crying, and whispers could be heard coming from the sea of black clad figures in the audience. Jason put his arms around his mother and his sister and turned to walk out of the chapel, without a care in the world.
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Alexander sat up straight in his bed, sweat dripping from his brow, his medium length black hair clung to his head in a sticky mess. He was panting and breathing heavy, shocked at the kind of dream he had been having. Alexander's wife stirred a bit next to him as she rolled over, her back facing him. Her slow breathing indicated that she was still asleep. He swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood up quickly, gripping the night stand for balance. He walked into the hallway and peered inside the doorway to his son's room. Jason lay there in his crib, the 9 month old baby was sleeping peacefully, a small reprieve from the usual chaos of infant sleep patterns. The night light in the room showed the details of the black patch of hair on the top of his little head, the small rises and falls of his chest, the cute snoring sounds coming from the snoozing child.
Alexander smiled fondly at his child. These nightmares would pass. He was stressing about being a good dad for Jason. He was stressing about making sure he was supportive, loving, and kind to his child as he grows up. But looking at his child now and feeling the overwhelming swell of love in his heart for this little human he had created, there was no way these dreams would come true. He wouldn't allow it. Coming into the room and reaching down to the night stand in Jason's room, he dimmed the nightlight a little more, sat in the rocking chair, and waited for his son to wake up. He was going to cherish every moment of this. And he wouldn't allow his nightmares to become reality.