The Truth

To everybody who's friends with me real life, and on Facebook and Google+,
This isn't my usual witty blog entry. This is basically something that I need to get out in the open. Some of you know the story, others are going to be very surprised to see such a dark side of me. I promise you one thing, there is a happy ending, but sometimes things get bad before they get happy.

On February 3, 1999, my sister woke me up and told me that my dad was dead. I was awake, but I rolled over in bed, pretended that I was asleep, and had the biggest smile on face. The guy who had beat the crap out of me and called me names and talked crap about me behind my back was now gone. Woo-hoo. I guess I should have cried or consoled my mother, but instead, I walked outside, sat on the porch and told God, "thank you". Truth be told, I wanted to party.

My dad was a tyrant.
He's the only person that has ever given me a nervous breakdown.
He beat me for not paying attention to conversations that I wasn't a part of.
While all of us ate day-old spaghetti, he'd come home and make himself a steak dinner with all the fixings.
I would get grounded if I was 10 minutes late getting home from school.
I once got an F on a paper, so he made me sleep outside with nothing but a pillow and a thin sheet.
I even attempted to commit suicide because of him.
His nickname for me was half-wit.
He never let me have a real childhood.

In January of 1999, I had a conversation with my grandpa (my dad's dad). I told him that I hated and wanted nothing to do with my dad anymore. We were in my grandpa's car  in front of my house for more than an hour. When I came into the house, my dad asked me (just being curious), "why were you in the car for so long, what did you and Grandpa talk about?". Instead of saying nothing, I told him the truth. I said that I hated him and I didn't want any thing to do with him anymore. I then went to bed. I heard my dad crying in the next room. For the first time in my life, I didn't feel sorry for him. I walked over, closed my bedroom door, put a pillow over my head to drown out the noise and went to sleep.

The next day, I woke up and saw my dad asleep in his chair. I was still mad and didn't want to accidentally wake him, so I went back to my room and hung out in there for the day. A few hours had passed. I went back to the living room and he was still asleep. At this point, it was mid-afternoon (probably around 3:00). I called my mom because I was worried. She told me to try to wake him. As I shook him, his eyes opened but were glazed and didn't wake up. I kept shaking him and shaking him. Well, it got to the point where I thought it was just his meds (he had so many things wrong with him), so I let him sleep some more. 5:00 came around. I called my mom again. She raced home and called 911 right away. The ambulance came and took him to the hospital.

While in the hospital, I never wanted to see him. I guess I felt guilty for saying what I said. I didn't know how it was going to be between us. I saw him the week before he died and he told me that he loved me. In fact, that was the last time that I saw him. A week later we got the call.

Towards the end of his life, I found God. God helped me to learn how to forgive. After he died, God helped me focus on the good that was deep down inside of my father. I truly hated that man, but I overcame so much and have become a better person because of that. I should also mention that probably a month before he passed, he started talking to my pastor and said that he wished he could have been a better father. I didn't know that until after he died.

When I was a little kid, he was the world to me. I'd pretend that he was a mountain and I'd climb on him. When there were monsters in the house, he'd get rid of them. We'd watch the Goonies, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Conan, The Sword in the stone, Robin Hood, and Superman. He'd pick me up when I fell down. When I was little, the only thing I remember him getting mad at me was for watching Gilligan's Island instead of He-Man.

That was the dad that I loved.

Rest in Peace.