So stoked to do a new entry of one of my favorite on-going segments on Going Guerilla. The one bit of consistent feedback I get from family and friends is that they like when I do personal entries, specifically my Tall Tales series. If you are new to the blog, I suggest you go back and check these out, as I consider them some of my best work here. Plus they are tremendously embarrassing and quite funny stories from my youth.
Unfortunately I will be detouring a bit from this path today as I tell a more mature story from my past.
As most know, I am gonna be a dad soon. As others may also know my dad passed away about three and a half years ago. So it is only logical that my current situation often takes me to places of trying to understand my own dad’s mindset when he was in my position years ago. But with him not around to talk to, I find myself consistently looking backwards at my past interactions with my dad to try and figure out what made him a good father to me. I don’t know that this is, necessarily, a story about what made him a good dad but it definitely is an event in my life that has always marked a turning point in my relationship with him.
When I was fresh out of high school I had a girlfriend that went to a university that was about an hour away. Let’s just say for simplicity’s sake that my parents and I did not see eye to eye in regards to this relationship. Partly because they were aware that it had become sexual and I’m also sure having your first child turn 18 cannot be easy as that child wants start pulling away and become an adult. Plus there is the added bonus that sometimes I was just an idiot.
Growing up my dad always used the saying, “You can’t shit a shitter.” Meaning that it was useless for my brother and I to lie to him because he felt he had either told or heard them all before himself. I don’t know why, then, I was always so hell bent on lying to my parents. Did I take my dad’s quote as a challenge? Was I just a dumb teenager? Was there a rush to getting away with something? Maybe it was just a bit of all three. Whatever the case, I had a pretty bad habit growing up of lying to my parents. And often about stupid stuff too.
To get back to the story, I was now 19 and wanted to go out and spend the night at my girlfriends dorm room one weekend. I guess I felt that my parents wouldn’t agree with this course of action, even though I never even tried asking, so I made up a story to cover my actions. I told my parents that I was going with a couple friends down to San Onofre, a local beach camping spot, for the night. To their credit, my parents trusted me, as they often did.
With my plan set in motion, I set out to my girlfriends dorm room. On the way there my dad called me for some reason on my (very early version of a) cell phone. While talking to me he asked how far into my drive I was. To which I replied, “I’m just going over Kellogg Hill.”
Only problem was Kellogg Hill is on the way to LA, not San Onofre. And I didn’t even notice my mistake.
The next day when I got home I remember my mom and dad coming into my room and confronting me. Telling me of my mistake. Of course my first reaction was to try and tell another lie to get out of it. But in this case my dad was right… I couldn’t shit a shitter.
He was already pretty pissed. Actually he was very pissed. He was so mad that I just couldn’t come out and tell the truth, that rather than trust him as a parent and respect him as an adult, I would rather lie to him which only insults him further. About this time I came clean and admitted where I had gone.
Now it wasn’t something he didn’t already know, but hearing that I had again deceived him, just broke something inside him. And it was something that was instantaneously recognizable to me. And I began to feel that sense of ache inside that only your parents disapproval can bring upon you. You know the feeling. You have never been more sorry in your life, than you are at that moment of clarity. And you would do anything to make all the decisions again, only different.
My dad had left the room and was left alone just hating myself. I remember a few minutes later my mom coming in and pulling me up by my arm and telling me that my dad was crying in the backyard because of me and that I needed to get out there right now and fix this.
The following exchange is probably the most vivid memory of my entire life.
I found my dad outside around the back of the garage. When I came around the corner I saw my dad crying. I had seen my dad cry a little bit here and there, like when Field Of Dreams was on or something, but this was different. He was sobbing, and I had done it to him. What happened next I can play in my mind as clear as if I was watching a video of it. He looked up at me and said:
“I have beaten men to within an inch of their lives and I have never wanted to hit something as much as I want to hit you right now.”
Crushed. That’s the only word I can use to describe how that sentence affected me. He didn’t even use the word “someone” he said “something”. He didn’t even see me as a person at that moment, let alone his son.
I just ran to him and threw my arms around him begging him to forgive me and I told him over and over again how sorry I was. And he forgave me. Because he’s my dad. It’s what parents do. I don’t know where they find it in them to keep putting up with our shit, but somehow they just seem to find a way.
That’s what I take from that day as I look forward to the birth of my own first child. It scares the shit out of me that my kid is probably going to put my heart through the wringer just like I did to my parents. But at the same time, I have to admit I am anxious to know what it must feel like on the other side. What is it that a parent feels for their child that allows them to consistently step back up to the plate every time the thing you love most in the world brushes you back with an inside curve ball.
I know that my relationship changed with my dad that day. The innocence was lost. I know the exact day and event that did it. I doubt most people can say the same thing, maybe they are better off, I don’t know. But I also know I enjoyed the path our relationship took from that day on. My dad treated and saw me as an adult after that. That’s not to say I never let him down again, or course it happened. But by accepting me as something different than just his little boy it allowed me to become one of his best friends, and he mine.
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