Dec 7, 2015
We are aware only of the empty space in the forest, which only yesterday was filled with trees.
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We are aware only of the empty space in the forest, which only yesterday was filled with trees.
I will never forget the legacy that my father left me, and all that he taught me. My life with Papa may not have been the easiest, but I have always been my Father's Daughter, and I will continue to stand for all that he believed in. He was my greatest hero. I will be lonely without Papa. We all will. There will be many moments in time when I look back on my life with Papa, and I will be upset by it, I will laugh at it, and I will wish to go back to it. However, I will instead push forward and uncover what my father was working toward, and perhaps I will follow my own lead on this part of the journey. But he will always be there with me, haunting me and guiding me alike. I cannot bear to look at his face. Only moments ago was he alive, looking at me, asking me to be there with him, just the two of us. There are many things that I learned from Papa, but I think that the most important thing that I ever got from him was his love of the work, which I am proud to have inherited. Thank you for making me the woman I am today.
We live trapped, between the churned-up and examined past and a future that waits for our work.
I think I'll miss Papa terribly. I also think that I just want him to be at peace, to be happy. He has left our games unfinished, but I suppose that is rather like him. It is strange. It seems that only now, in his final moments that he has made peace with me. For everything. For being a woman, for being lesbian, for being everything that he wanted somebody else to be, and for seeing him at his good and bad times. I think that for the first time in my life, he might actually love me, even if he doesn't actually say it. I hope that he is happy. I wish him no regrets. Goodbye, Papa. I love you, Dad.
If some longing goes unmet, don't be astonished. We call that Life.
As a Daughter
A Message to Papa: Am I not good enough for you, Papa? But I am here with you. Out of all of us, I was the only one that stayed with you, with your beliefs and convictions, and with you. I am here now, trying to take care of you, but you refuse to acknowledge me. Why? I know that you want to die. That you are in pain, but you want to go on your own terms. To know that you are dying and analyze your thoughts as you slip away, but Papa. I am here, and I want to help you. I know that there is nothing I can do for your cancer, but if there is anything that I can do, please. I want to do it. I want to be useful to you. I know that I am not the son that you wanted to be here with you, to succeed you, but can't I be good enough for you? Please. Let me say goodbye to you. You have been everything to me, father, mentor, my guide, my light in the darkness. I need you. But if you can't be with me, I need to know that you want me to continue. That you trust me. I need for you to see me as I am and accept me in order for me to go on. Can't you do that for me, Papa? I can be everything that you wanted in a child if you just let me be. Let me in. If you want to leave me now, at least set me free. Oh, I wish that time would just stop. If only I could stay in this moment with you. I am afraid of being alone, Papa. I am afraid of the silence. I love you, Papa.
I don't think that Papa has ever understood me. He has never once reached out to me to ask me about what I wanted. He never stopped to look at me. Not just analyze me as a subject of observation, but really look at me, as his daughter, and as a human being. He has always thought of women as inferior. How then, can he think to have any semblance of understanding of us? Of me? I have been a faithful daughter to him, following in his footsteps without really making any of my own footsteps in the beginning. His footprints were always much bigger than mine. But I have grown up and I have started to take over my own path, and at this point, I am walking side by side with him. I don't know when I joined his road, but I have taken it up as my own. And yet, I could not have done anything that I was able to achieve had it not been for the education that he gave me. Because of that, I was able to reach a level which most women could not have. I sometimes wonder whether he ever expected me to reach the intellectual level that I have obtained and that I plan on expanding upon. I will show him one day that I am as good as any of his so-called successors who never actually became his successor. I will make him proud of me, make him see that I am just as capable as any man. I am good enough, and if I am not yet, then I can be in the future.