Dads Are No Joke

Thank you dad for being the help that brought me into this world.

Thank you for being born the first son of my grandfather and grandmother, even though you were third in line and have two older sisters.

Thank you for being born into a traditional family and embracing those traditions, embellishing them even, and making them your own.

Thank you for building this box, this cage around us, to remake us in your footsteps, in your own image, to combat the system that wronged you.

Thank you for believing in four, the God of Death, and Three, The Goddess of Life... more than you believe in your own children.

Thank you for listening to others, be enamored by those golden words, that your own inferiority weeps into long rivers, long rivers that cascade into cruel, unrelenting, torrential waterfalls that crushes the limbs, crushes the ribs, crushes the breath out of your very children that you want to push to new heights, heights that are beyond imagination, heights that have no staircase leading up to them at all. I do not know why you do not listen to your own family to this day and think of the words of others as words from heavenly beings, but I can tell you for a fact, that you did not believe us. You did not believe IN us, much like how you did not believe enough in yourself that you could change anything the world. Or perhaps you believed that you could just stick to a simple job and that everything you had to do was "keep at it." You believed that living simply by traditional means that some things are "as is" and "as they should be" forever, in perpetuity. You taught my generation to NOT live simply, to adapt, to run, to learn everything ourselves. This is the error of your ways and how the world is now.

Thank you for lashing out at us when we were young after a hard, physical day at work. Thanks to you, we learned the hard way of sticking together, to escape together, to create a future...without you. But that would be too easy, wouldn't it? We learned how to fear you, not respect you although respect you did demand. However, you did not realize that respect was not ours to give, it could not be demanded and taken out of our soul, but that it had to be earned, even if the individual is smaller than you, especially if the being is smaller than you, inexperienced, and unknown to the inner workings of the world. But before that...

Thank you for going into work, day in and day out for over 30 years. That is a very impressive feat and thank you for continuing to trudge along even when the going gets tough and your neck and shoulders get all tight and stiff from all the physical stress that has literally been placed upon your shoulders. Thank you for you insurance plan that covers your family's annual checkups and dental screenings although sis and I hate going to the dentist. Thank you for not taking a single sick day off of work even though it is hardly necessary and nobody would even bat an eyelash if you did end up taking one. That pride of yours, that ballistic, stupid, stubborn pride of yours of showing off and doing things even though they are not necessary, is what drives your family insane. But do you notice? Maybe. Do you care? Maybe again. But I do not believe you care enough to change cuz heck, I've spent a good decade of my life slowly changing you to become a better person, to get along with mom and sis, so that when I am not here, you all will still get together just fine and not be at each other's throat 100% of the time.

Time. The amount of times we could've left you behind because of your outbursts and your attitude or the times when you were just wrong. Just dead wrong. And you wouldn't admit it because of that goshdarn pride and stubborn attitude. But we're sticking together now. We're gonna stick together now, no matter what, and slowly but surely, I hope to get you to see your wrongs, to acknowledge them, and actively work to change them. But that's alright too if you don't. I've already done as much as I could during this last decade to help this family so, what you all do or don't do, is all up to you. You are old and I am tired. There are no two ways about this.

Thank you for being the "father figure" of our family even though you were always just the figurehead. Laughing obnoxiously and comically when with others, giving the others an impression that you are a successful man, for only a successful man would be able to laugh like that despite the circumstances that he has been placed into. Even more so, his family. His family must be doing well, he must be proud of them, he must love them and cherish them, for him to get along with others so well. This must be the most fortunate family out there.

But.

Everything is just an outward appearance... Everything is just for show...

Unbeknownst to you or perhaps you were knowledgeable of this all along,

"The tree remembers, but the axe forgets."

and there is also the saying or common understanding that

"The human male resorts to something called 'The Nothing Box' and it is something that has perturbed, confuzzled, and downright has made females absolutely flabbergasted at how such a thing, such an event could ever occur." To make up for your lack of thinking, there is me! Me, who is a also a male, but ridden with anxiety! Another gift you gave me, so thank you. And after all of this, I do not resent you. I did, but I do not anymore.