In Search of a Clear Mind...
Its been almost 4 months since my father has passed and still I find that I will spend the times that i'm alone thinking about what kind of a son I was for him, and what kind of a father he was for me. I spent so much time in my youth thinking that my father was a bad person. partially because of things my mother would say out of her emotions for him, and part because he wasn't there to defend himself when she said it. It just seemed like whatever I heard, had to be true. When he would come for the day once every 2 weeks to see me....I spent half the time not even wanting to be with him because I thought he was such an awful person. he was that guy that popped up every so often with gifts and sometimes tickets to ball games. I didn't get to even know my father until I was 16 years old.
When my father moved here so that I could live with him, I didn't think about how maybe he was doing it because he knew I needed an education and this was the only way it would work properly (I had dropped out a half year beforehand). I didn't think that maybe it was because he felt he needed to be closer to me. I didn't think about the fact that he had been in Brooklyn about 40 years and he was leaving most of what he had known behind so that he could be there for me. I didn't think about how he would now have to commute at least 1.5 hours each day to work just so that I could have a roof over my head to call my own. I don't know what I thought....but I didn't associate it with my father caring about me.
My friend Dennis and his family were very kind in letting me stay with them for a long duration of time when I had nowhere to go, and I will never be able to thank them enough for that. Still though, it didn't feel like "home"...and I knew it and felt it, and I think my father knew it also. When I finally told him that I wanted to live somewhere that was actually MY house....he said he would move here and we could live together. I never thanked him for that....not once.
I spent a lot of the time we lived together not trying to get to know him...or letting him get to know me. I went off with my friends, I said and did some really selfish things and acted like a spoiled little sh!t. Ive since looked back on letters that i left for him and his replies to them and I can't believe I said some of the things i did....I can't believe that I was that person when I was younger. I don't mean the typical angsty teen that needs to grow up, I mean I was really a crappy son.
Just in the last year or so did we actually really settle in to living together. We finally spoke a lot daily, and even though I still wasn't around all that often...when I was, we actually acted like a father and son, and also like friends. I would still say things that maybe weren't appropriate...but it was because I was worried about him and I didn't know how else to react. I would say things to the people closest to me like "he's such a drunk" or "I cant stand when he drinks, he just doesn't listen or care"....but that wasn't because I was angry with him or I disliked him....it was because I was so afraid that he was getting up there in the years and he had a blatant disregard for his health and mortality. I was afraid...
When my Godfather (Uncle Greg) passed away....I knew that he was going to take it very very hard. He wasn't quite himself for a week or so afterwards, and now I was really worried. At this point I started trying to spend more time with him....I took off work more often to be around him...I wanted to make sure he was alright. It took me until the last 3 months of my father's life to act like a normal and decent son, and even then, I wasn't being a "good" son. I was being a kid...a scared kid....knowing that his father was in trouble, and not knowing what to do about it.
Im afraid now that there will never be a day that passes that I don't think about how I was a poor son, and how I can't ever do anything to change it now. I have had some small and silly regrets in my past, but this is a real and true regret that is burning a hole inside me everyday. It had been a long time since I told him that I loved him or cared about him. It had been a long time since I had actually done anything "good" for him. I brought that on myself....and now I know that I cannot ever let that happen with any of my other relationships in life...I just wish I had the chance to fix this one.
I am hoping that writing this out will help me a little...but I doubt thats true. I am still going to feel the way I do, and I will still have the same regrets about it. I just thought that maybe putting it "on paper" might help. My girlfriend suggested that I start writing songs again to help let some feelings out, but I just don't have the inspiration to compose a song right now. She is right though...I do need a release from all of the grief I am carrying around with me everyday. This is how I am listening to her suggestion....this is a very long song or a very short novel of everything I think about when it's time to go to sleep.
