Monsters

They didn’t have the best of relationship, the most cordial of relationship. Their relationship was so strained that it began to fray around the edges because of all the tension. They each wondered why the other couldn’t be more like the others, normal and accepting.

He always felt that in his heart knew that he could never become the son that his father wanted him to be, though he tried his earnest and darnedest best to make him proud, but somehow he always felt he fell short. He could never be the man his father wanted him to be because of who he was. 

He wondered if his father would ever accept him for he was, the life he chose, the love he chose, if he only knew. And though he never truly spoke about it, opened up about it, he always had this thought that he would never accept him for he was, cause once, a longtime a go, he had shared his view on the subject.  

So that view stayed with him, stuck with him and never truly allowed him to share himself with his father, to tell him his truth.

He had always thought he favoured his daughters more than his son cause they took up after him. The phone calls, the message,  the chats, that he didn’t receive, made him feel left out and unloved. An outcast, an anomaly.

It didn’t help that in a drunken state his father declared that he was not his son! These words cut deep and stabbed him badly, leaving a wound that never quite healed. He lived with his whole life with this scar, with this resentment, but at the same time with this regret that he could never quite heal from this hurt, or forgive these words.

But still here they were, two grown men trying to say their goodbyes. And although he knew that he still had some resentments, some grudges, scars and unhealed wounds, he knew there had been many moments of genuine love, of kindness, of tenderness, of bonding. And for these he had to let go of all the bitterness he held inside.

In that moment there was no wrongs or rights, no ways to forgive and forget. They both knew the mistakes that they had made. But now it was time to let go and just be two grown men trying to let go of the past, trying to find a way to reconcile, find a way to heal.

He remembered a time when his father chased the monster, lurking in the shadows and under his bed, away. So now it was his turn to the do the same.

So he patted him on arms, and kissing his forehead, and whispered him to sleep, hoping while he slept he could still find a way to make him proud. 

So he said his goodbye, as he saw him take his last breath, and through the tears he whispered, “Daddy now it’s my turn to chase your monsters away!”