Atonement with my Father

Today has been a tough challenge not only for me but for my whole family. My father, who’s 73 years old, had a stroke and he was rushed to the hospital. I’m trying to be optimistic for him, but I have to admit that I also have to be prepared for the worse that could happen.

All these years, I never allowed myself to get close to him. My whole life I’ve been cross with him almost every day. The thing is I never liked him, and I have my own reasons. I’m against his alcoholism; he drinks alcohol almost every night. That is the main cause why we constantly engaged in verbal battles that would normally lead to him throwing curses cursing at me. When I was younger I had some experiences when he would physically hurt me, that’s why I grew up a rebel against what I came to accept as his “ugly” ways. Yet whenever sober, he likes to portray himself as a good ‘christian’. I find it very ironic and repulsive, and I felt an obligation to make him change his ways. But the more I try to reason with him, the harder it is for him to let go of his bad habits. My distaste of for him grew bigger with age. That’s why within me is a deep-seated anguish for the father who should have been my hero and role model, but has since turned into a most unlikeable man for me.

But, now, as I watch him lying helplessly in a hospital bed, I felt something I haven’t had felt for a very long time. I can see his suffering and I suffer with him. All the bad blood between us are is slowly dissapatingslowly melting away. After all, he is my father and nothing in the world can change it. It’s only now that I find how much I love him. Perhaps this feeling has always been kept inside, and I was just afraid to admit it before. I can only hope it’s not too late for me to let him know how I truly feel about him.

There is nothing that I want more right now than for him to recover and regain his health. I want him to come home with us safely and in good spirits. I want him to be able to laugh with the whole family again. I want him to be able to play with his grandchildren again. I want him to live a very long life along with my mother. Then maybe, just maybe, he will change for good.