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A Welsh Monk Helped Me Navigate My First Father’s Day Without My Dad
It isn’t possible to avoid the darkness, but it is possible to look towards the light
It’s Father’s Day and I am walking through my hometown, feeling bereft and surly, like a teenager. I am in Derby to do administrative tasks relating to my dad’s death, and I don’t want any of this to be happening. The worst thing is that when my dad died, I was taking a break from him. Our last interaction was him reading my oddly formal email, asking for space. I was working through some tough stuff from my adolescence, and I didn’t know how to talk with him. He respected my request. The coolness of this last moment kills me.
But I was angry with him. My teen years were traumatic and lonely, and they crowd my memory as I walk these familiar streets.
There is the pub I used to day-drink in. There is the nightclub I blacked out in.
I remember inhabiting this body back then and knowing absolutely nothing that could help me live a good life. Remembering the wilderness years of my teens makes me feel angry with my parents. Where were they? Why weren’t they paying attention? How did they leave me so clueless and vulnerable at that crucial time?
