Notes to Dad

 Dad,

It's been 3 1/2 years now since your passing, and I still think of you all the time, I believe literally every single day. I hope that never changes. I had been told that would last a year or two before I would notice that the daily thoughts had faded into longer intervals. But with you, the daily thoughts have remained, and I'm glad for that.

But even as I love you, the daily thoughts are not always pleasant or fond.

Something jumped in my spirit this morning as I was listening to an audio book. The author was sharing a story from decades ago, when he was busy writing a manuscript that later became a book, and received word that his father had passed away the previous day. The author described quickly packing up and traveling to his hometown for his father's funeral, and then dedicating the book he was completing both to his mother and to the memory of his father. 

Naturally, any story of someone losing their father makes me think of you.

And right now, my feelings about you are a little more raw than they were a few years ago.

I have two sons of my own, who are coming of age, so I know intimately the kind of flexibility it takes for a parent to be what their child needs them to be. No child grows up into a clone of their parent, or at least it's not likely that they will, and I doubt any thinking parent would want them to. I don't think you wanted me to. Both of my sons have grown up into young people so different from each other and so different from anything I imagined for them. 

So, as a parent, yeah...it can be a game of Twister.

And no, it isn't always easy or comfortable.

That's just how it is. I kind of thought everyone knew that.

So the gnawing, nagging question that will haunt me till we meet again is this:

Why was your devotion to abstract ideas so important as to allow there to be a barrier between you and me for years, a barrier that probably could not have been broken down, no matter how long you had lived?

Why were your religious and political commitments more important than a connection to me?

How could you do that?

I am a parent who is as flawed as anyone, and I don't plan on giving much advice, but I could never do that, or allow that to be. I am living this right now, so I can speak with integrity. When it comes to my children, I would rearrange my world, no matter how hard that was for me, to ensure they could feel comfortable in it, not expect them to come to me on my terms only.

And something just hit me now, as I wrote that last line:  That's how you viewed God.

You viewed God as "my way or no way", with human beings bearing the entire responsibility to come to God on God's terms only or simply be shunned, with everyone expected to be content to live with that, so maybe it makes some sense that this mindset had some level of permission to take root in other relationships as well.

But still, even though I "get it" more than most people would, because I was raised in your world, I still can hardly believe it, when facing it in real life, with my children growing up in front of me, becoming their own people but still needing me to hold them, emotionally, in just the same way I did when they were born, and when they were little.

I needed you to hold me that way, too.

Every kid needs that, even after they're grown, and even after they've become different from their parents. 

I think especially then.

Every kid needs from their parent what you never believed God would give to anyone.

When I frame it like that, I realize it may not be fair to you. It's a framing that is especially unflattering to your belief system, and probably not exactly the way you framed it. But I know your belief system intimately, and I have arrived at this framing through living it, so I think my perspective should be respected and not tossed aside as a jab from a biased opponent.

And I think this framing captures what I see as the fork in the road where we separated and eventually could barely see one another anymore.

I tried to be open with you in the way I could.

I know it was ridiculous that my statement to the entire family about changing church affiliations had to come via email rather than an in-person conversation. Believe me, I was embarrassed to announce such personal news to loved ones in that way, and I was ashamed of what this meant for the nature of our relationship.

But your response made clear why I felt I had to do it that way.

And when you immediately went from engaging enthusiastically with my spiritual writings online to ceasing all connection with my blog postings, the message was clear, and the validation was unmistakable that I had made the right choice in not trying to engage you in person about the most important decisions I was working through at the time. 

I knew then that I had become radioactive to my own father, because of religion and politics.

And that's where we finished our relationship in this life.

This breaks my heart, but it also angers me, because I don't believe this was necessary, and I think you were wise enough to have known better.

And as we carry on in this ever-sinking political hellscape around us, and the political and religious personalities you once identified with are becoming more openly hateful in the public sphere, I shudder to think where you might have been by now had you not died in January 2021.

I wonder whether there could have been any hope that you might have seen your conservative heroes as the Christian Nationalists and Fascists they are now proving themselves to be, or whether you would have followed them headlong. I wonder if you would have turned back from the edge and maybe reached out for me, or if you would be flying an Appeal to Heaven flag by now.

I wonder, but I'm afraid I know.

This is probably why, since your passing, I have leaned heavily into my memories of a younger version of you. Yes, this version of you was more hot-headed and scared me sometimes, but I'll take that over the more political version that evolved later and was apparently content to live across a chasm from me.

The younger version of you was angrier about more trivial things, but more normal about the big stuff.

The younger version of you still loved sports, and cheered on our favorite teams with me by his side. Oh, how I loved that, and how I miss it. I wish he had not let this flame die in his later life. I think it could have been a very healthy connection to stay engaged with something so joyful.

The younger version of you took pride in his Marine Corps service, yes, but this had not yet turned into scorn or superiority toward others.

The younger version of you preached a simple, direct gospel that no one would perceive as being infused with a larger ideology.

The younger version of you was always perceived by others as Mexican-American, though he didn't speak Spanish and identified more with white culture, and was struggling more than I realized with how to work out this identity, but this version of you would never have made room in his world for anyone or anything even tangentially connected to white supremacy. I cannot fathom how you became comfortable in the right-wing world you did later on, so I reach back further to the brown young Californian I remember in the late 70's and early 80's, and the deep, DNA-level pride I took in everyone telling me I looked just like him.

I dream of a scene with me now, 50 years old, treating that young guy to tickets to Dodger Stadium, and taking in a game and a Dodger Dog while we visit freely about how our lives turned out, no inhibition, no filters, no gauging whether topics are safe, rejoicing in how we can see it all better now, how we never should have allowed distance to develop between us, how we now curse the names of every person who created a religious and political world that would separate a parent from their child, how we needed each other more than those power-seekers needed another voter.

This is my Resurrection dream, my Easter fantasy.

This is what I want from Jesus.

This is what I want from you, and hope to give to you someday when we meet again.

I needed to say all this, Dad, but I say all this while still saying that I love you. They say the opposite of love is not hatred, but apathy, and I hope you know my feelings toward you are anything but apathy. 

You don't think every day about someone you don't care about. 

Rest now, Dad, and if you have awareness of me, know that every Sunday as I recite the Nicene Creed, which you would have considered a form of false religion or idolatry, when I say the words "...we look for the resurrection of the dead..." and make the sign of the cross, I am thinking of you. 

I am imagining that conversation we could never have when you were here.

May it be so someday, Dad. May it be so.

Amen.