by Morton Mcinvale

Created on: June 20, 2009

He's dead now. Papa. This will be my first Father's Day without a father.

Once, once upon a time, I had wished - had even gone to the closet to use the 16-gauge shotgun to ensure - that I had no father.

Because he was an alcoholic. Because when he drank I witnessed the fires of Hell burn in his eyes. And no matter how much he might say, no matter how much he might apologize, I would never - never- forgive him. I think he knew. I think he felt that some things were beyond forgiveness. First, first, he had to forgive himself. And Papa just never was one for confessions. Although he is dead now, although he never drank again not long after my own marriage, the fires still burn. The memories gather in shadows, whispering, haunting. The curse - his curse - is now mine. Not that I drink. No.

The torment, the fury, the hurt that drove him to drink. . .all is in me. Because I could not truly forgive - forget -, like The Ancient Mariner I am cursed to remember what I loved, to glimpse now some of what he must have felt, to yearn to tell him (him, who found it so hard to tell me, his son, his deepest feelings) how I feel and to beg his forgiveness. . .When he is no longer there to hear. No longer there to help. No longer there. Just there - to give me, unconsciously, the one someone a son should be able to lean on. Even if he never does. Even if doesn't know how to ask. Even if his father doesn't know how to answer.

I didn't know (didn't learn) until the day he died; the day we all assembled at the new white hospital by the old Creek Indian fort where he had grown up. My sister and I had to tell him - although I believe he must have known - that there was nothing more the doctors could do. He would have to die. Behind us, the nurse was crying silent tears. Papa took it - like he had always taken everything and like I have so envied and admired and, yes, resented - like a man.

"Dying with dignity. It's all I can do."

By God, he did!

Died in a few short hours . . .just to spare us time and trouble.

Poor Papa! Doomed to lay on that bed with us perched like vultures to watch him die. . .Although we did it because we loved. Because he was leaving us. Because we didn't know what else to do. Because Time had run out on us. On us, strangely, not him.

He said a few more things. Not much, really. And just before twilight, when the sun slipped down behind the blood-red brick of an abandoned cotton mill, we all - one at a time - drifted

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