An Ode to My Father

When I was sixteen, my father was diagnosed with brain cancer. I remember in vivid detail getting called to the office out of a theatre class, hearing the news, and returning semi-composedly only to completely break down in the middle of a peer’s presentation. He passed away three weeks and six days later.

Now, I apologize for phrasing that so bluntly; I don’t mean to shock you. But sometimes, life can be blunt, and there isn’t anything that can prepare you for what’s about to happen. My father wasn’t my first loss by any means; all of my grandparents had passed in previous years, and my eldest brother died of an overdose when I was twelve. The loss of a parent, however, was nothing like those losses, and nothing I’d ever seen prepared me for how difficult it would be.

It’s been three years since he passed, now. One of the scariest things about that is that his face gets harder and harder to remember with time. That being said, I remember his voice as clearly as day. My father was a man of few words, and so the words he said carried importance and honesty. He was quiet, and he didn’t talk to me very often. When I was younger, I often mistook his silence for indifference, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. At his core, my father had one of the biggest, most caring hearts I’ve ever known. And despite his shortcomings, he was always a silent and strong support.

When I was in high school, I was involved in a lot of things. I did theatre, choir, marching band, dance, and percussion among other things. Because I was so busy, there were a lot of events and performances, and he was there for every single one of them, often teary-eyed and beaming with pride when he got to see me afterwards. My father’s love may not have been the most colorful or showy, nor did he demonstrate it with his words, but it was reliable and deep and unconditional. It was something I could always count on to be there, no matter what. I don’t really think his death dawned on me until the end of a performance of a musical I was in a few months after he’d passed. I remember standing in the hall, watching my friends getting to see their own fathers and families, and there was nobody there to see me that night. It was the kind of emptiness that settles in the pit of your stomach and never seems to let up. I kept thinking that I would see the top of his head bobbing in the crowd, but it was never him. For the first time in my life, he truly wasn’t there, and the finality of his absence was suffocating.

There’s this old quote I read recently by the philosopher Aristotle that goes “The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.” And while this is a very powerful sentiment, I was neither beautiful nor composed nor heroic in the height of this hardship. Instead, I was bitter and resentful and angry. I was volatile, and I lashed out frequently at those who were trying to show me love because I didn’t trust it. I was extremely selfish, and I refused to look outside of myself and my own remorse to see that everybody in my life was grieving the loss of my father. I refused to get the help I needed, and I certainly refused to help others. This is a time in my life where I was at my very lowest, both in my emotional well being and in the way I was treating those around me.

Now, as far as character goes, it would be so easy for me to just chalk my failures up to circumstance and my successes up to effort. But the thing is that all of these negative emotions and behaviors are just as much a genuine part of me as the ‘beautiful’ parts. Candidly, I am deeply flawed. I don’t always put in my best effort to do good, and I fail more often than I succeed in my ventures. But I have also come to believe that there is more power in living beautifully in spite of flaws instead of without them. I suppose it’s arrogant to challenge someone as reputable as Aristotle, but a very strong point can be made for beauty that stems from a lack of composure, instead of from an excess of it.

There will be times when I will break down and fail over and over again. There will be times when I am selfish and unfair, and these are just as important as the moments when I am successful and kind.

A very long time ago, the philosopher Confucius said “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without”. I know that it’s cliche to compare diamonds and coal to triumph and hardship, but the metaphor is powerful once you really get into it. Diamonds are formed from chaos and pressure and heat; in order to form a diamond, you have to break rock and Earth down into individual atoms and then build them back up into something new and strong and valuable. Like most compounds you can find on our planet, diamonds are carbon based. This carbon was forged in the hearts of stars billions of years ago, and is older than our Earth by about one billion years. The carbon then has to be heated and pressurized until the atoms are free in solution. Once the carbon is broken down, it can be reformed into a diamond if the bond angles between atoms are correct. This is one of the most critical parts of diamond formation; there typically has to be a ‘seed’ that tells the carbon atoms how to orient themselves in such a way that these bonds form correctly. Otherwise, the bonds might not form correctly, which means the diamond won’t form. In a lab setting, a small pre-existing piece of diamond crystal is used as a seed. This seed is added into the molten carbon, which then causes the carbon to form a diamond. This seed is the key to the atoms bonding the proper way, and it is absolutely necessary for creating diamonds. Without that single crystal of potential, the diamond won’t form.

What I’m really trying to get at here is that while heat and pressure are needed to break something down, a seed is also needed in order to create something beautiful and new. A diamond is the product of both chaos and order.

It would be an outright lie to say that my father’s death and the grief that accompanied it has completely changed me for the better. If we’re using the diamond analogy, then I am far more free floating carbon than I am crystal formation at this point in time. I miss my dad very deeply to this day. I still have nightmares about his time in the hospital every now and again, and I struggle with intense mood swings that are often related to thoughts about him. But I also have gained gratitude and depth and compassion for those around me that I never had before, and that continues to grow and strengthen as I heal.

And something very empowering to know is that while all the bitterness I held after my father’s death is a part of me, so is the seed. I was broken down completely by this experience, and because of that, I am currently rebuilding myself into something beautiful. There was always that small piece of crystal inside me waiting to transform into something greater given pressure and heat and time.

Today, I am far from perfect, but I am making progress. I’m currently a double major studying Neuroscience and Psychology with a triple minor in Microbiology, Philosophy, and Creative Writing. I’m working in a lab studying the microbiome, working on publishing my own poetry collection, and taking part in several on campus groups related to issues that I care about (including climate change and drug safety awareness). Long-term, my goal is to pursue an MD-PhD in Neuropsychology, and go into research and postsecondary teaching. My father was one of the greatest, smartest, and most hard working people I’ve ever known, and I honor his memory by putting all my effort into everything that I do, because that’s what he did. And I wish so badly that I could go back in time and talk to him just one last time, but instead, I can work hard and know that he would be just as proud of me now as he was then.

I think one of my favorite things about doing all sorts of performing arts in high school was those moments I got to see my dad at the end of the night. He would always bring me a rose and he would hug me and tell me that he loved me and was so proud of me. He was the one who planted that seed inside of me that inspires me to grow through hardships, and in that way, he will always live on.