To provide some context behind this story, I haven’t lived with my father since I was 3 – 4 years old and he fathered me when he was in his late 50s. So we’ve been distanced in more ways than one. Coronavirus brought forth some unusual circumstances where we were quarantined together, just the two of us, for 14 days, in an empty house in Georgia. Our time together was marked with a variety of emotions – sadness, frustration, anger and laughter. Since some time has passed, I’ve been able to reflect on the lessons that I’ve learned through this experience.
1) I realize that I’ve judged my father just as much as I’ve felt judged by him
My father has said to me that he feels like I’ve gone down the wrong path in life and that he wants to steer me back on the “right path” so that I can have a stable job, get married, buy a house and have kids. In sum, to “stop wasting my education and life.” This was after I spent a significant amount of time explaining to him why I’ve made the career and life decisions that I’ve made (I left the 9-5 to travel and figure out my life).
I felt hurt listening to him express his feelings to me because I felt judged for wanting to merely live a life that aligns with my values. Moreover, I felt like he was insinuating that my values are “wrong” and his are “right” even though I’ve told him time after time that his traditional views of success are misaligned with what matters to me. I felt like I needed to defend myself by providing examples of people who have achieved these external markers of success and still, are unhappy. However, upon further reflection, I realized that in wanting to defend the choices that I’ve made in life, and calling out folks who have followed the traditional path and are not happy, I was, in essence, judging him and his values in the same way that he was judging mine.
We’re two generations apart. It’s not a surprise that we don’t value the same things. He’ll always value what he values and the same goes for me. So rather than mutually judging one another, I can accept that there are differences in what we find important in life.
2) I reclaimed my power by accepting what was
We got into a heated argument one day and as soon as I was able to see how I was wrong, I apologized to him. Perhaps it was naïve of me; however, I expected that he would offer an apology in turn. I waited…and waited…and there was no apology to be found. I began to feel the unfairness of the situation and felt angered/annoyed that he wasn’t reciprocating the gesture.
When the food delivery came, he asked me to come to eat and I realized that this gesture was his indirect way of apologizing and if I could accept that, then I could make peace with the situation rather than expecting a direct apology from him. Having expectations meant that I was creating my own suffering. Pain is inevitable, suffering isn’t.
3) It’s not in my nature to hold grudges
One night, I closed the back door, which was something that he was accustomed to doing on a nightly basis. As soon as I closed the back door, he got out of bed to check that I had, in fact, closed the door. So I asked, “Do you not trust that I closed the door? He said, “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s that I’m worried about black burglars. I just wanted to double-check for our safety.”
I was livid when he said that – there was so much racism in his comment. I said, “You can’t say things like that. Yes, there are burglars who are black but not all burglars are black.” He brushed me off, and in my moment of anger, I said to him, “Tomorrow, I’m not going to turn on the radio for you.” (The radio app was on the iPad and due to his old age, he doesn’t know how to work an iPad).
Although he responded with “okay,” lo and behold, the next morning, he asked me to turn on the radio for him. I said, “You said that you wouldn’t need my help today so I’m not going to help you.” He went the entire day without the radio, his only source of entertainment. He ended up napping for the bulk of the day, not by choice, but because there was nothing else for him to do. Seeing him like that made me feel bad.
The following day, given what had transpired the day before, I think he was afraid of asking me to turn on the radio. Rather than seeing him sleep all day, without him asking, I turned on the radio and passed the iPad to him. I realized that it takes more effort for me to be spiteful than to show compassion.
Although my father and I experienced a lot of ups and downs together during this two-week period, I am grateful that I was able to spend this time with him. It took a global pandemic to bring us together for a small stretch of time and in the process, I learned to become a better version of myself — for me and for him.
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