My practise essay for Advanced English inspired by a lack of a father figure and a desire for appreciation. Thanks Dad!
Question 2 (15 marks) Among Others … is a collection of different pieces of writing about individuals finding their place in a community. Compose a piece of writing which would be suitable for inclusion in this collection. Use ONE of the sentences below as the first sentence of your imaginative writing.
If you don’t have a capacity for solitude, you will always be lonely.
My little world started to reveal itself to me.
The gravel, small as peas, moved beneath their feet and from it a faint dust rose, the perfume of the town.
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“If you don’t have a capacity for solitude, you will always be lonely”
His last words rang in my head endlessly, day by day and night by night. Like the curse of the Pharaohs, it plagued my life corroding my time, my work and my hobbies. My father’s last words weren’t uncharacteristic of him but nonetheless horrific. He’d always been a man of militaristic uniformity and passionless motivation, whether it be his work, his hobbies or his marriage that inevitably failed because of his lack of emotional decency. No words nor action throughout the years that we walked the same hallways and used the same kitchen conveyed any kind of bond or attachment. We inhabited the same home for years and yet lived entirely separate lives in entirely separate worlds. My mother, who I loved as any son would, was merely a maid to my father; to clean, to cook and to eventually cripple. They were so different, alien, compared to each other and yet they slept in the same bed each and every night as if their marriage was arranged.
After they seperated I rarely saw my father. Each Christmas, Easter, New Year and Birthday that went by I expected nothing and I still managed to be disappointed. The occasional phone call was, as you’d expect from someone such as my father, systematic and orderly; each question as if he spoke on a strangers behalf completely unaware of my interests, my desires and my dreams. Despite how methodical and militaristic his schedule was he still managed to miss each birthday, graduation, formal and performance completely unaware of how important it was for me. A simple fatherly handshake, such a trivial action that would have at least implied that I had finally done it, that I had accomplished something in my life.
I eventually gave up. As years went by I cared less and less about whether he’d make an appearance to the point where it was easier to assume he was dead rather than he forgot. It gave the emotional and psychological closure I needed, because I thought that if he were dead he couldn’t effect me anymore. Instead I searched for the approval, the satisfaction and the pride in my peers, colleagues and friends. Each success of mine was a success of theirs, each celebration further enforced my self-esteem and confidence. I completely forgot that my father, if you could call him that, existed and I was finally able to live my life without each and every emotional barrage brought upon by him.
Except he finally appeared … just not in the way I hoped.
I got a letter from my father; not an email or a text but a handwritten letter, stamped and posted. My emotions became stormy and I couldn’t help but capsize; I felt so incredibly overwhelmed yet completely detached. Everything about the letter screamed it were written by my father’s hand: the lack of traditional fatherly nicknames like boy, son or champ, the flowing, almost graceful calligraphy and the simple fact that it was a handwritten letter. The atmosphere was overpowering and I simply collapsed, unlike Atlas I was unable to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders anymore. The letter read very simple,
“Two weeks ago I was diagnosed with pancreatic adenocarcinoma. I am unlikely to survive as the survival rate is less than 10%. My home is at Stamford.”
I caught the first flight I could to the United States, completely unaware as to why I did. How could I consider him a father if he had never been there? What possible benefit would I gain from seeing him? It had been more than a decade since I’d had any interaction with this man but nonetheless there I was walking the stairs of the apartment where he lived; small, brick and rather spartan. Exactly what I would expect from a man such as him. My legs were rather heavy but I knew it had nothing to do with the chilly of Stamford in November; it was purely anxiety. Each consecutive step increased my heart rate tenfold, fearing my heart would fail at any moment.
His rustic door appeared worn down and broken but the doorknob remained prestinely polished. The door knocker was, like the doorknob, cleaned to a fault. I knocked on his door, scenarios running through my head as I envisioned his mistress answering the door with a chirpy, naive greeting completely unaware of his past or a young boy, no older than 10, staring deep into my eyes with the same childhood innocence I wish I had before calling for his grandfather. I tried to picture what his apartment was like, how he had built an entirely new life right after abandoning mine but I could not. How am I supposed to imagine a world for a man I never truly met? Unlike a stranger whose home you can imagine by how they look, walk, breathe and smile, I cannot imagine this man because the man I used to know didn’t exist anymore.
The door opened. It wasn’t frantic or leisurely but instead perfectly ordinary. I looked him dead in the eyes expecting nothing, from him and I, but instead it was clear we were both overwhelmed. He led me inside without speaking a word and his world became my own. He was the man I once knew but it was clear he wished to change, he wished to try and try he did. A scrapbook placed neatly on his varnished wooden coffee table showed every photo we ever took, every birthday he ever missed and every performance he wished he could’ve made. On his kitchen table were hand-written letters, sprawled out with every word he dreamed of saying but never got the chance. The small television surrounded by home-made videos of my first words, when I learnt to ride a bike and my little shows I’d do in the lounge room. He didn’t have much to give or to call his own but his memories were his own and no one could take that from him.
We spoke for hours about everything we missed. He asked about how I went in school, despite having a copy of every report card next to his bed. I asked about where he was all these years, perfectly aware he’d been here alone. We were peaceful in mind, body and spirit for a perfect moment. Sadly, moments are exactly that. Moments. They cannot last forever.
The events to come seemed to be unreal and all to real. It made me absolutely delusional trying to piece together how long I’d been there as if I were staring at an hour-glass that lacked any sand. Hospitals in the dead of night were arguably the most surreal and entracing place any man, woman or child could be yet I prayed to be anywhere but here. It was extremely naive of me to believe a simple prayer would do anything, take me anymore or do anything for me whatsoever and yet I placed my hope in a being greater than myself. All I really wanted at that very moment was the same thing I had all throughout my childhood.
I grasped my dad’s hand as tightly as any boy would, like a schoolboy scared to cross the street. I wanted to tell him everything, all I wanted was to tell him how I’d felt all these years. How I’d wait for him to walk through the door on my 11th birthday and surprise me. How I’d make an appearance at my formal. How he’d be there when I finally finished school. I couldn’t find the word, I didn’t know what to say first.
I never got the say those final words. The last thing said in that room was …
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