by Dominic D.

Created on: January 12, 2009

I could never please my father. No matter what I did, I did it wrong in his eyes. When I needed a compliment from him, he would stay silent and walk away.I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know if he was proud of his only son, the last to carry on his family name. I would hurt, then I would get angry, and then I would be determined to do it better, but better only meant it still wasn't good enough. I excelled in sports. I became a natural leader. I took up learning musical instruments, and I excelled.

He never noticed enough to tell me he was proud. He would toss my cousin's name in pride even though I beat him in everything. I began to distance myself physically from this man I could never please, but emotionally he was always by my side walking with me, telling me I wasn't good enough, or strong enough. He began to chastise my physical appearance. My nose was too big, as well as my ears, and when I developed acne at the age of twelve, he said it was my fault.

I hid inside myself and created a wall, emotional brick by brick. I began to pretend I was not me, and someone better would emerge. I began to lose myself in music inventing a strong, likable, good looking person my father would want as a son. Others began to notice, but he continued to be blind to his son. I began to feel hate for him and myself, and I married at the age of nineteen to leave his kingdom, his rule, his obvious disgust for me.

He never left me. I carried his words, his look, his mocking laughter through my years. I began to walk like him, but I didn't mind. I began to see his features in my face when I looked in the mirror, and I began to understand that he didn't know how to tell me that he loved me as a son, or how proud he was to have me. I began to understand the struggles of his life leaving a family behind for two years to emmigrate to a foriegn country to better the lives of his wife and children. I began to understand the man whom others thought stupid because he did not speak their language, and I began to reconcile myself to the fact that he did give me a better life.

As the years passed and this mighty man became frail and soft, I realized he made me a better man because I understood him, and I felt emotions and was not afraid to express them, as he was. He made me want to do better, and he wanted others to respect me unlike the respect he never got from others who never gave him a chance.

My father lived a long life, but I really thought he would live forever, and when he died, the sudden rush of love overwhelmed me. The love I had for him, yet could never tell him, shook me loose, and though death became the final goodbye, I carry his legacy, and I am proud to have been his son, and I am proud that he was my father. My goodbye to him was in giving him the credit for the strong man he was, and for doing the best that he could with what was given him.

I wear his favorite sweater when it's cold, and I carry his favorite Zippo lighter even though I don't smoke, and that is my way of saying goodbye, and I miss him every single day, and I tell him often how much I love him though he'll never hear.

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