Father’s Sons

- Rhapsody -

I looked up to my dad.

He always had a natural way with people. It was like every person he met immediately became his best friend.

He was a master at haggling. When he bought me my first car, it seemed like the dealer enjoyed the process more than we did. Not only laughing the entire time, but giving us a discount I could only describe as unrealistic.

The first time I heard his story I could only marvel at it. Coming to America on a boat headed to New York. Never showing up for the job that was waiting for him. Instead, somehow traveling across America and winding up in California. The odd jobs he apparently did, the only one of which I could recall was as a janitor.

Saving every penny he earned until he opened his first business–a dry cleaner's.

I spent my childhood at that place, heading there after school every day. This is where I began to admire how hard he worked, a fact that never needed to be communicated to me since I repeatedly saw it firsthand.

Eventually I was old enough to work alongside him and I was glad to do whatever task he assigned to me–sweeping floors, pressing clothes or hanging laundry.

Those might have been my happiest years.

I don't know the exact moment I started to resent him. It's something that grew over time. I think there came a point where I wanted his respect. I never got it. It felt like all he did was look down on me. I never measured up to anything worthy in his eyes. I never heard any of the words of praise I was craving, just what was wrong with me.

Terrible son. Underachiever. Lazy. Troublemaker. Disappointment.

When I decided to become a pianist, it felt like liberation. It was the first decision in my life that I made for myself. The first time that I didn't fear my dad's reaction. I was going to do this or die.

It was like cutting the cord.

At that time I was going to a college that was roughly an hour and a half away from the liquor store we operated during my high school years, after we moved up north due to money problems.

I remember thinking I needed to get the hell away from him, as far as possible. It wasn't so much that I hated him but that my life was going nowhere. College not only seemed pointless, but I was dropping out of classes because I couldn't handle the coursework on top of the commute back home since my dad had asked me to help out each weekend.

Possibly that wasn't true, I might have been driving back to the family as an excuse. I might have been afraid of straying from my comfort zone.

So off I went. Southern California. New life. New college. New friends. Nothing on my mind but piano.

The next several years were a blur. Practice, practice, practice. Finish my Master's. Apply for a doctorate. Drop out halfway.

Rude awakening. Realizing my dream of becoming a pianist would never be come true.

More than anything, I couldn't accept doing something that went against his wishes and ultimately failing at it. Success would have been incontrovertible proof that I wasn't him.

I was more like him than I care to admit.

The flaws in the story never registered until much later.

I believed hard work would always pay off, just as it didn't for him. There was a lot of good advice that never landed because I was too stubborn, just as he never listened to me.

Just like me, it seemed like his father didn't acknowledge him either.

My grandfather happened to love me very much. I don't recall my dad ever loving me this way, but since I look very happy in my childhood photos I assume he must have. After my grandfather passed away, my dad seemed mad at me all the time. I didn't understand why, but now I think he might have had a hard time with the attention my grandfather lavished on me. This is all conjecture since I doubt we'll ever have a conversation about this.

Did this happen to my grandfather too?

I wonder what would have happened if I had a son, If I would have resented him for being loved by my father.

If I had a grandson, I wonder if I would have lavished all my attention on him instead.

I wonder if my own son would have eventually come to resent me the same way I did my father.

I would like I say I would never have allowed history to repeat itself, but I can't:

I'm my father's son.