Member-only story
My Dad: A short sketch
Keeping it in the family
When I look in the mirror he stares back at me. He is alive and in this moment he still breathes.
Yet we buried him in 1984. Though buried is not accurate. He donated his body to ‘medical science’. So his organs were committed to the fridge of a medical student for endless dissecting. Maybe his cold cuts were responsible for some great medical breakthrough. Though I doubt it.
As a child I always wanted to know my father better than I did. In the war zone that was my parent’s marriage he was the enemy. Collaboration was not encouraged. And although he was never my enemy he became something of The Other as I grew up. So our relationship was always uncertain, it rocked on uneven ground always at risk of falling.
A part of me always wanted to know him better. There were times, albeit fairly fleeting, when I felt a closeness, and our shadows briefly touched. I saw parts of him in me. But like looking at something in a stream, the reflection was diffuse and fragmented and quickly borne away by the current of living.
One of my biggest regrets today is my judgmental attitude towards him following my parents’ break-up. As a thirteen year it was probably necessary for my emotional survival to take sides with my mother — we all did. But later as a young adult adult with a…
