Fathers

A touching episode of 'This American Life' from years ago. and it includes a beautifully honest narration in the form of a reading from 'You're not doing it right'.

I still wonder if 'love' is the word that describes what I feel for my dad. and I don't think I've ever said 'I love you' to him. in fact, even writing it right now while thinking about him, makes me feel really awkward. and I do not remember him ever saying it to me.

when I look back, I think I've gone from feeling fear and awe for him, to detachment, to anger and blame and (probably the natural teenager emotions) a longing to leave him and home and to never need his help, even revulsion and shame, to sympathy and prayers, and now finally to a mixture of acceptance, shame, gratitude, blame, affection, admiration, pity, and a strange urge to want to educate him in all that I feel his upbringing left out. more than all, I would so love to have a real, calm, and deep conversation with him, about life and things that matter. but I can hardly ever get out of him anything beyond rhetoric and cliches and borrowed phrases and repeated-till-they're-annoying opinions.

yet, I know he loves me, in some way. and I feel he shows it with all the financial help he keeps giving me, often without asking, even now. and sometimes - once or maybe twice, I've heard it in his regret that he wasn't rich and didn't give us more; although I never felt like I was deprived of anything, materially. and then I feel guilty for letting him live with that regret, for being unable to take it away from him; of course I've told him that I never needed anything more, that he gave me everything I ever wanted, but there's something about saying this after a regret to the contrary has been expressed - it doesn't feel sincere, anymore.

I haven't been grateful enough, and yet, even now, I want him to be the father I want him to be, not the one that he is.