I lost my father at the age of
twenty-nine. It was not unexpected. He was terminally ill throughout my twenties,
and chronically depressed during my teens.
Ever since I can remember, he had a death wish. He would talk about death as though it were
waiting right around the corner, making statements like, “I probably won’t be
alive to see that,” whenever I mentioned graduation or getting married or having
kids. His pending death consumed my
life.
Nonetheless,
he remains the meter by which I judge all men.
My father was a profoundly flawed man, and still every man who came
after him would fall short of what I viewed as his unrealized greatness.
My
father could have been a contender. He
was extremely intelligent, witty, good-looking (I look exactly like him, but
those characteristics don’t transfer well to a woman, IMHO) and should have
been successful. Except for one thing. Depression.
It turned minor setbacks into major life-changing events and incapacitated
him at times. He would tell me “when the
going gets tough, the tough get going,” but most of the time he himself gave
up. He gave up on life long before it gave
up on him. He was dead in 2004 at the
age of 59, felled by a form of skin cancer that is 99.9% curable, because he
didn’t go to a doctor until it had spread everywhere.
Yet
his legacy lives on, in me. He believed
in me. From the moment I first said I
wanted to be a writer, he encouraged me.
He thought I was brilliant and perfect, even when no one agreed,
including me. He knew I could do it. More than that, he knew I would do it. He correctly stated he wouldn’t be alive to
see it. Every time I finish a book, I
feel his pride in me, that I never gave up, never quit, and always believed. Without his unshaking confidence in me, I
would not be an author today. Life would
have gotten in the way until my tomorrows all ran out.
My
dream became his.
He’s
with me, urging me not to give up on my dream, even when there are obstacles
standing in my way.
So,
it is in that spirit that I do my official launch of Lost in Hardyland, a story about a father and daughter attempting
to work through their differences when they are nothing alike. Brad Hardy, like my own father, is a
profoundly flawed man. But also like my
father, his love for his children is his redemption. When I was finishing up the book and planning
its release, I decided to try something different, to offer it for free on
Father’s Day weekend, for all of us dreamers out there with fathers who
believed in us. And for all the
daughters and sons with less than perfect fathers who became our heroes anyway.
Happy
Father’s Day, Dad.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D6CXZ9Q
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