Friday, November 9, 2012

Welcome to No Trespassing

My father died in May 2012 and after needing a little time to process that privately I have decided to make this blog available to the public. When my sister called at work to tell me the news I was really surprised. He died in his sleep she told me. I didn't understand what she was telling me at first. I was nine months pregnant and felt like I needed to sit down. Since then, I gave birth to my first baby, a beautiful and healthy baby boy. I have often seen the resemblance to my father in his face and thought about how much I got out of both my father and mother's parenting as a child. I can't help but feel very lucky to have had two functional parents for as long as I did even though my father left us in terrible circumstances. As tempting as it may be, I can not go down the road of reminiscing about my father as if he was a wonderful man. I know to some, his partner, his friends, and perhaps my sisters he was a wonderful person. I have no problem with that but I think I knew him in a very special way - I saw many more sides to him than perhaps I should have liked to. I feel a tormented anger for how he treated us, his family and that might never go away. However, I can also acknowledge the value in those experiences as well as the importance of my earlier days growing up with him there by my side, which my sisters and brother never really got to experience in the way I did. This project is really all I have left of him. I am proud of the work I did to reach out to him in the ways I could but it pains me that I will never get to meet him one more time in person. My sister pointed out that I may very likely have been the last one of my family members to see my father alive (through a telephoto lens).

No comments:

Post a Comment