I spoke with my father on the phone the other day.
He was in Colombia at the time. I don’t call my father unless it’s important, but what I consider to be important is not what he considers to be important. And vice versa.
My father told me on the phone that a linguist knew that he had learned English in the Midwest. Apparently pronouncing the “h” in white is a Midwestern thing.
I also pronounce the “h” in white.
I guess some things get passed down.
I hope that some things don’t.
I cry sometimes when I write about my family
when I talk about my family
when I think about my family.
But I have only seen my father cry twice.
Once when his mother died.
The second time was when he visited me at college.
He came to tell me he was proud of me.
I imagine he cried when his father died, but I wasn’t there.
I don’t know why family hurts.
There is some kind of connection between me and them. And it doesn’t matter how far I travel away from them through space and time, the tie seems infinite. It covers all things and touches all things and there is no escape. But even if there was I probably wouldn’t take it. It is part of me, it was passed down to me. And who am I to deny what I have been given?
And yet what has been given to me is not complementary with the rest of myself. There are things that are in disagreement within myself. Things that oppose, things that conflict. And the tension that they create inside of me is angering. I want to be whole and coherent and singular. Singular like an island. Singular like the Sun. Singular like Truth. Singular like God.
But I am no closer to that then my father or his father or his father before him. I must somehow cope with the anxiety of existence, the anxiety of being a son, and now a father. But many have done it before and yet this knowledge brings little reassurance to me for I am the only one who can pass down to my son what is good and pure and holy. The burden is great and the days are few. For who can sift the wheat from the chaff? Whose hands are strong enough? Who am I to overcome what generations of men have been unable to? And yet who am I to not at least try?
If there is any hope for my son that can be found in me it will rise out of this broken heart, this listless roaming mind, and these tears that run down through the generations.