Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Memories and thoughts...

When I was a teenager, my grandmother used to tell me that throughout my youth, I always had a tendency to bring up the subject of my father around my birthday (mid-October, for those who don't know). I had never noticed this as a child but I suppose it makes sense . . . although, I tend to think that my birthday wasn't the occasion that brought these thoughts to mind so much as the upcoming holidays.

You see, I have never spent a single holiday with my father. My biological father, I should say. My adopted father, who I have known for about 23 years now, has been present for birthdays and holidays most of my life. So please don't misunderstand these comments to mean I don't appreciate all that he has done (and still is doing) in my life. I love him and I respect him dearly.

But my biological father has almost never been present in my life. Almost. He was there on my birth day (or perhaps the day after?) but only because my grandmother brought him to the hospital to see me. Then through the first two years of my life he was vaguely involved. By that I mean, he arranged to see meet up with my mother several times but never (or nearly never) showed up. My mother tells me he didn't care.

I wonder if anyone in the world can understand how impossible it is to believe your father doesn't care about you. It's not about just wishing he would so you could know you were important to him . . . it's about constantly hoping that he wasn't the terrible person everyone tells you he was. It's about being scared that maybe he really was just an evil man who cared for nothing in the world but himself. It's about the deepest desire of your heart to hope he turned to the Lord during his final moments and begged for mercy. It's about clutching your hands together in prayer and praying mightily for his soul all the time wondering if it matters at all because the flames of Hell may have already engulfed him.

You see, when I was just short of three years old, my father jumped from a five story building and ended his life.

No one knows what happened to him. I'm uncertain as to whether I ever will really know. The police report claims it was suicide. My mother has tried to claim he was likely involved in a drug gang and was murdered (she has no evidence, mind you).

I think I've mentioned before on my blog that my favorite virtue is Hope. I'm not sure how anyone could understand how important this little virtue is for me because honestly without it, I would have given up long ago.

Morgan Freeman's character, Red, in The Shawshank Redemption, tells Andy once, "Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane." But Andy later proves to him that "hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."


Andy is right. I don't know where my father is . . . but I hope every day that I will see him again in Heaven. And I pray for his soul's release from Purgatory into that Eternal Bliss. 


I hope . . .





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