Does it make you a bad person if you don’t feel anything when you find out your father has died? Am I inhuman? Does it make me callous that the person who helped give me life is dead and I feel nothing for him? Is there something missing inside of me that fuses compassion and memories into a single entity that I don’t share with the rest of mankind? My father, Carl D. White, Sr died yesterday, October 18th , 2006 and when I heard the news my world did not change one bit. My father died, a pitcher for the New York Yankees died in a single engine plane crash, 9 more US soldiers were killed in Iraq and a family in Iowa was slain by the brother…All stories of death and dying, however, only one of these people called me son, called me CJ and I feel nothing…
Yes, we had our issues. Yes, I hadn’t had a proper conversation with the man in 13 years. Yes I had only seen him 3 times in the last 14 years. Nevertheless, it doesn’t change the fact he was my father. As much as I try to deny this fact, as hard as I try to distance myself from the truth, I am my father’s son. I have his jaw line, I bite my bottom lip the way he did, and when I get angry, I bite the inside of my cheeks, as he once did… He resides in me in every facet of my existence. Yet, my first thought was better him than my mother.
The pain he caused has faded and the wounds he opened have healed. I almost forget at times what it was like to be his son. Those stories aren’t worth mentioning now. Too many writers with more talent than I have can describe scenes of human suffering and agony at a higher degree than I who has spent years perfecting the art of suppressing emotions.
My father wasn’t the only father to die yesterday in the world, but he is the only father that I will ever have. When I think about it, that, and only that makes me sad. Because one is gone, I don’t receive a replacement with the hope it will be more loving and less volatile than the last. That’s it. I get one father, one dad, one daddy and the world moves on. What would it be like to have my father look me in the eyes and say he is proud of me? What would it feel like to have a father I could be proud of? What kind of man would I be today, if my father would have been that man yesterday? Well, I guess now I file those questions in the same cabinet with the, Where is Jimmy Hoffa buried and who really killed JFK questions that I’ll never find an answer.
One must always try to take the good with the bad in any situation. In some ways, I owe my father a lot. He taught me what it wasn’t to be a man. He constantly demonstrated what would happen if you let your insecurities and fears rule your life. How can I ever repay him for that priceless education? Yes, I am my father’s son, but I am not my father. Yes, we share the same name, but we do not share the same soul. Yes, we have the same face, but we do not have the same heart. My mother knows how much I love her, my brothers know how proud of them I am and my sister, if she doesn’t know, I will spend the rest of my life making sure she knows that she can always depend on me to be there for her. No, I’m not perfect, I have my flaws as does any other man, as did my father. Every day I try not to let those flaws hurt the people I love. That is what I would have liked to teach my father…That and, and that I had so much love I wanted to give him, if he would have only allowed me the chance. Just once chance is all I needed if he would have just opened up the tiniest bit…
I just hope that when my father passed, with none of his children at his bedside that he didn’t realize what he missed out on, that he wasn’t aware his family’s absence. What type of death would that be not to have such amazing people as my family around you in your final moments…to be a father and to die without your children’s’ love? I don’t wish that on any one, not my worse enemy, not anyone.
To Carl D. White, Sr. may you find the peace in the next lifetime that your family could not provide for you in this one… August 23rd, 1950 – October 18, 2006
waw, carl, este texto es precioso. me ha hecho llorar. yo perdí a mi padre hace dos años. la verdad es que distaba mucho de ser un padre perfecto y sus debilidades y miedos son aun parte de las lacras que arrastro yo en mi vida. pero le quería muchísimo y en realidad y, a pesar de todo, siempre he sabido que él a mí también. durante la semana que estuvimos esperando su muerte, mi madre, mis hermanas, sus hermanos y yo estuvimos al rededor de su cama día y noche. él estaba sedado y no sé hasta qué punto nos percibía. ha sido una experiencia horriblemente dolorosa. ha marcado un antes y un después en mi vida. mi padre estaba acompañado y el tuyo sólo y sin embargo y aunque me encantaría no percibo alivio en haberle acompañado, así como la ausencia de dolor no te dejó sino vacío. probablemente la muerte y muy especialmente la muerte del padre sea una experiencia igualmente brutal para todo el mundo y bajo todas las circunstancias
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