Simply being sad could not describe what I felt at this moment. It was gone, or at least almost all of it was. But when you came down to it, the money was just gone. It was his last chance. All that he had.
When I realized what he'd done, I had to grip the chair and hope that gravity could pay me some respect and keep me from falling flat on the floor, not just from a light head, but from sheer emotional exhaustion.
All this time, I had worried. I had fretted, lost sleep, worried helplessly that my father would end up so poor that this hole he'd dug himself into would be too deep for even his family to help him out of.
And then I knew the others were right. I tried to pretend that my father was changing, and that he was getting his life back on track. But since my mother left, he'd done nothing but go straight downhill. All the while, I'd watched, helpless to do anything for him. Listen and console, yes. But that seems to have only fed the fire, it seems.
My mother would have yelled. She would have said - "Nelson, get up off your ass and start living your life!" And she would have been right. For six years I have watched my father sink far down into a terrible depression my mother is now calling a rut. He doesn't work, he doesn't get out. Though my mother moved out and has her own place and her own life, she had to support him.
And yet my father never bothered to look for a job. All he would say was that he'd be getting his old business started back up again. Soon, those trucks would get new batteries, and me and my brother would be driving it around to the construction sites to clean up. From what I've heard, that's a damn hard job. Back aches, hard labor. I've never wanted that, but I could never really come out and tell my father this.
And what about him - 50 years old. For a man of that age, he's in all right shape. But hard labor is enough to really hurt him. I'm young, I can take it. He can't. And so I start to worry about that. If he did get the old business back up, could he really get back into that old life?
Now I know ... it's so clear, and it breaks my heart more; it was the past, those years in the business with my mother. He's always lived in the past. He talks about it all the time - times so long ago. And now he's trying to start a so-called new life, in the past. I know this is all he will ever do.
But how can I come out and say anything to him? All right, I'm his daughter. I know that I'm closer to him than my older sister and younger sister. He and I are pretty much the same person - everyone says so. We have the same philosophical ideas, the same dreaming minds, and, of course, the same tempers. He have passion in our hearts. And yet despite all the passion that grows like a rain forest in this man's heart, he seems to get more depressed and listless with each passing year.
My own passion flairs for hope, hope for his future. But, from what I've come to understand, I have only known my father for 19 years. My mother was with him longer, even before they were married. She knows what he's like, and I'm beginning to understand what I've resented her saying for six years. She was right.
I love my discussions with my father. We talk about so many things - politics, life, the universe and everything. But even with all that talking, I can't seem to bring up the simple and yet delicate topic of my father's life. I want to say - Dad, it's time for you to get up off your ass and start living your life!"
But how can I say that when I'm not doing much of that myself. I'm 19 and I still live with my parents, and I don't have a job. I don't even know how to drive. I lost all the friends I ever had after I was pulled out of school and put into home school. Sure, I've grown into a smart girl who thinks about all the big stuff. But I'm alone. I'm becoming scared of the outside world.
I'm turning into my father.
But I've started to take baby steps. I applied for a job, and I've been getting out a little more - to places other than the library. I have been slowly, but surely, creeping out of my protective shell. I'm doing it. So maybe he can do it too.
But, still, I fret. The money from the tax check. That's all he had. It was supposed to be his last chance. I wanted him to get a car, get a phone, and apply for a job out there. But now I realize that's asking a lot of him. How could he leave his protective shell of the past when he feels so comfortable there? His shell - his resentment for my mother, his sadness for himself, his fear of the world, and his fear for himself.
I know that. I know all of that. But I'm stepping forward.
I want to come out and say it to him. I want him to understand the importance of his lifestyle change. I want to pull him up out of that ocean of sorrow and help him start anew, and to forget the past. But I've already drowned a little myself. And I know I'll keep going down with him. As long as I love my father and as long as I care about him, I will sink into the ocean of sorrow until we are both empty souls.
