"When I wake every morning, I am surprised I'm still alive. I don't do anything. I don't produce anything. I don't add anything to society. Each day I ask God why He let me live one more day."
These were the words my father told me just two months before he died.
When I was a child, every evening brought fearful anticipation of my father's drunken arrival home. Paydays were the worst. My family stacked tin cans inside of the front door to the house. We thought this crude alarm system could warn us of his imminent return, and we could somehow hide from his raging abuses. Some nights we were thankful that he never made it into the house. He would fumble with the keys till he passed out. We would find him on the steps the next morning. At times, we would all get in the car and sleep at a nearby parking lot just to get away from him. I wished for a weapon-like a gun-to stop the pain he caused.
Sometime later, my parents divorced. He couldn't keep a job. His alcoholism eventually led him to a life on the street. He traveled the rails, slept in parks and longed for his next drink.
I lost track of my father when I was young and the next time I heard of him is when he had been beaten up and left for dead. The hospital tried to find next of kin in case he died.
"Just tell me where he's buried, so I can spit on his grave," my brother said. And I didn't feel much better about my dad than he did.
Then one day, many years later, I heard Dad showed up at a family member's funeral. His sister saw him there, took him in and helped him find a place to live. He had been staying under someone's porch. She called me and said it would be good if I could ever visit him. I decided not to do that.
I spent most of my life hating him for what he'd done, for not ever being there when I needed a father. Why does he need me now? I don't owe him anything. He owes me, I figured.
The feelings bound me in a prison of my own making and the idea of seeing him tormented me daily.
I struggled with my own demons of depression for many years. I not only hated my dad, but I hated myself. The awful names he called me when I was a child labeled me and became a template for my perceived character.
Feeling a connection with others who had suffered trauma, I went into the ministry and became a youth pastor. I seemed to identify with the broken and needy. Many times I would help them with the issue of forgiveness.
Someone asked me once if I had ever forgiven my father. No. He never showed signs of regret and never asked for forgiveness. I used non-forgiveness as a means to hang on to my hatred and anger. I did not want to let that go. It was all I had left to fight against him.
Time passed until one day I had taken off work to put tires on my car. With the rest of the day free and new tires, I decided to take a drive. I needed change. Things had not been going very well for me. I needed peace. And I needed to experience God in a whole new way. I had gone through some financial problems and had recently lost my job as a youth pastor. The depression and anger toward God grew. Whereas I knew intellectually that God was a loving and kind God, I was not happy. I was miserable. And I didn't understand forgiveness at all.
For reasons I did not quite understand, I felt compelled to drive south in the direction of where my father was living. Not sure why. Was I going to kill him as I had imagined so many times? I don't know. As I drove I imagined him in the car with me and I let him have it. I spilled out my anger to an empty seat. Then I yelled at God.
And all I heard was the sound of my own voice. When I stopped at a gas station, I was worn out from crying. I got a Pepsi and got back on the road.
In the quietness, I tried to shut out the word, "Forgiveness."
I parked, and cautiously strode up the path to the door. Unsure of myself, I knocked. My heart pounded. What would I say? How would he respond? This would be hard, but I knew it was right. I knocked again and held my breath.
As the door opened I saw him. Not the strong angry man of my childhood, not the big man I still feared, but a shell of a man with long white hair and a mustache yellowed at the edges from years of smoking cigarettes. He squinted at me through tiny eyes and took a step backward holding his hands to his chest. I thought, Oh great, I've come all this way only to watch him die of a heart attack.
I introduced myself.
Standing there in a dirty t-shirt and underwear, he invited me in.
We talked for hours. He showed me pictures of my childhood that I had never seen. I wondered where he had gotten them. He introduced me to his cat, Outsider. He called her that because he never went outside, even to get groceries. He was an Insider.
He told me he didn't drink anymore and spent his days watching National Geographic Channel on TV, smoking cigarettes, and drinking Mountain Dew. He said it reminded him of beer.
"I loved the bottle more than anything else, even more than you," he said.
I knew he had never been the dad that I had wished for all my life. Yet, as we shared a Mountain Dew together that day, I felt a strong connection.
He apologized for all he had done. He praised my mother for raising such wonderful children.
As I stood to go, I said, "Dad, I know things have not always been good for you. You did not always make the best choices. Life is hard." I swallowed. "It's hard for me too. But, Dad, I want you to know that today . . . I forgive you."
His best response was to say, "Thanks." Then he turned and said as he walked to the other room, "Yea, but I can't forgive myself."
Seeing his humility, his meekness and shame, I wished I had visited him long before. I took him for what he was at that moment. Not for what he had been. This man before me was not a man to be feared. He was not an enemy. He was not even a man to be pitied. He was a man that needed love-my love-even in the light of all he had done. In that, I understood the truth that God loves me, and even while I was a sinner, Jesus died for me.
Many years ago, forgiving him would have been impossible. Now it was simple, and it flowed easily.
As I left, we hugged. He said that he loved me. I said it back. Somehow at that moment everything seemed right. On the way back home I felt God's arms around me and His loving forgiveness in my heart. I so needed that.
A month later I visited him again, taking my son with me. It was the first time my son had ever met my father. We all three shared a Mountain Dew together, watched National Geographic, and laughed. That day my father said he didn't know what the reason for his living one more day was, but I did.
Less than a month later I got a call saying that he had passed away. At the funeral I stood at his casket. He looked different. Somehow he appeared taller. He had gotten a haircut and shaved his beard just a week before he died. He had actually gone outside and down the street to the barbershop. He looked at peace. I knew that all his trials were finally over, and for once he was happy.
When the family members went through his things they found a letter he had begun writing. It was addressed to me and it said simply, "Son, I'm proud of you."
I couldn't believe that I spent most of my life in hatred and unforgiveness. There were so many years of letting his evil control my life and actions. I had wanted to kill him. To destroy him. To get back at him for the hurt he had caused. Instead, I discovered that that forgiveness is the greatest weapon we can wield against evil. I realize now that my anger and hatred was wrong. I should have prayed for him. I wish I could go back to that day we had together-and say, "Dad, will you forgive me?"
