Hello Son. It’s been a long time since I have written you.
Actually, it’s been a long time since I have written anything. I’m not entirely sure why that is….
No. That’s a lie. I know exactly why that is. It all has to do with Vulnerability. I’m not good at it.. and I believe that, past a grasp of language, Vulnerability is a prerequisite for good writing. Perhaps I will try to change that with this letter. Perhaps I will share it with others instead of deleting it like I normally do.
I thought I was decent at that; vulnerability. I guess on some level I was. But along the line I got gutted; by people who were my friends, by my Job, by life.
You know… Life… The thing you never got to taste.
Father’s Day is hard for me, my son. I never got to be a Father. You were taken from me, and that door closed with such finality that even a foolish person like me understood what had just happened.
Don’t get me wrong. My life has been utterly amazing. I have had profound love. I have traveled the world tilting at windmills. I have had Brothers and Lovers, and Teachers, and Arch Enemies. I am told by others that I have led a good life, and there is no denying it has been full of adventure; full of great storylines.
But I never got to see my son grow.
My relationship with your Grandfather is wonderful. He is a better man than I will ever be. He expresses his love and his pride in me freely and without hesitation. He is stronger then I am, facing challenges physically that would have had me take the easy way out long ago.
There are things about him that I don’t have. His level of compassion for people is, for lack of a better word, Saintly. Pain pills have slowed his mind, but even so I know that he is smarter then I.
But I wish he could have met you. A part of me feels guilt in that. I see how he delights in other men’s sons, and, in a completely irrational way, I feel that I failed to give him that experience; having a grandson of his own.
I have a number of wells of irrational guilt when it comes to your grandfather. I suppose that is the nature of father and son since we humans began designating ourselves as such. I wonder if you would have had the same feelings about me.
I wish we could have found out.
You would have been 21 this year. 21 father’s days have come and gone since your brief existence. In the early days, I used to try as hard as I could to ignore this day, to not think about it. Certainly I never expressed emotions about you. There were a lot of reasons for this. I didn’t want to make your Mother feel horrible. For her part, she has always been open and supportive, but…
If it is one thing that I have learned about women, my son, it is that they have a boundless capacity for guilt and self-hate. I didn’t want her to take on the guilt of your not being here.
As time went on, and fathers days rolled by, I allowed myself to imagine what you would have been like in that year. I tried to remember myself at that age, and fantasized that you would be smarter, stronger, more kind, less prone to violence for the pleasure of it. In my mind’s eye, as you grew you were the pinnacle of budding manhood. You possessed all the things I wish I had in myself, and lacked all the things I wish I didn’t have.
I dreamed that I had surrounded you with good books and art. You were a painter, a writer, a poet, a warrior. You were some strange amalgam of Hemingway and Aldo Nadi. You were all the things I wished myself to be.
Perhaps you were with me after all.. Maybe it was you, in some strange way that pushed me to taste life as deeply as I could. To strive to live an artful life. I know for a fact that I would not have gone down certain paths if you were here…
I am who I am. I am not your grandfather. I am a lustful, violent, simple creature. Sure, I dreamed of surrounding you with all those wonderful things, but I also dreamed of engaging wholeheartedly in all the stereotypical bad Dad things..
I would have taken you to your first strip club, even though I really don’t like them. I would have shared good scotch and cigars with you. I would have chuckled at you when you learned your own lessons about excess and vice.
I would have showed you how to shave with a straight razor, like a “real” man. I would have given you advice on women, and enjoyed the results of your first revelations into the mysteries of Venus.
I don’t know if I would have been a “good” father… But I would have been YOUR father. And like the gift of unconditional love and acceptance my own father has always given me. I would have given that to you.
Our line dies with me. Since writing to you is an exercise in vulnerability, I can tell you that this fact bothers me in ways I truly do not understand. But such things are impotent emotions. I can rage against the Sisters of Fate all I wish, but they do not care.
I miss you, even though I never really met you. This Father’s Day will come and go, and if I don’t get myself killed on some Damn fool adventure I will write you again next year…
Perhaps your ghost is with me, perhaps it isn’t. My theology is a bit muddy these days. The only thing that I know in my deepest of hearts is that I love you.
Written June 2017