Memories of Daddy, Post 4: First Time I Ever Saw Daddy Cry.
Updated: Sep 11, 2020
Daddy wasn't a perfect person, as none of us are.
I butted heads with him frequently, and we got into our fair share of verbal altercations. Many times at the end of it, I would tell him I was done talking to him and for a while.
I'd go days on end without saying a word to him, even when he tried to speak to me. In my mind, I refused to say anything to him until I got an apology; sometimes I'd get it, but many times I'd just cave in and talk to him again (I was also a teenager so I'm sure I was at fault more often than not).
However, there was one time where I became so angry that I was done talking to him. I went over a week without looking at him, saying a word to him, or even acknowledging he was there. He would get angry when I wouldn't speak to him and that made me even more determined to not say anything to him. I just thought he was a jerk and didn't care about me.
But one night, I was about to go upstairs and was startled to see a figure sitting in the dark on the couch in the living room... it was my dad. And he was crying. I was so confused because I had never seen Daddy cry. When I asked him why he was crying (yes, I caved), he told me it was because it hurt him so much that I, his son, wouldn't talk to him.
And it crushed me.
I never thought that something as small (in my mind) as not talking to him would ever elicit such a reaction. Daddy's happiness and his soul were, and still are, forever intertwined with his children.
If anyone wants to know what it means to truly love your children, it's this.