A Letter To My Father

I posted this entry back in February 2006 during my first attempt at blogging. You can call this a vacation post. One of those retreads that people "mail in" every now and then. Hey, I have an excuse. I'm so focused on getting out of town that the well of ideas has gone dry....

Dear Dad,

I'm writing to you because I have a great many things to tell you. There is no doubt that what I have to say will break your heart. You may never want to see or hear from me again, or call me your son. But, I write this letter with both the confidence and the hope that I have understood ALL that you've taught me about this world. All I ask now is that you will afford me the opportunity to speak.

I am no longer a Roman Catholic. I am no longer a Christian. I do not believe in the one "god" that you and billions of other Christians, Jews and Muslims call to be theirs exclusively. I'll understand if you stop here, crumple the pages on which I've written this letter, and chuck it into the trash. But I call upon your genuine sense of reason one last time and beg that you hear me out.

How did I arrive at this point in my life? How is it that a child you raised in the faith of Catholicism could come to such a conclusion, after living only half the life of yours? My reasons -- shocking though they may be -- are all based in what I've learned from you. It was you who taught me to defend the honor and integrity of my family. It was you who taught me to be skeptical of those who unequivically claim authority without proof. It was you who taught me to be instinctively kind to strangers; to love humanity as I love myself.

I know these tenets form the basis of your faith, but I've come to realize that one need not be "faithful" to hold these tenets to be universally good. Moreover, I fear that these days, the leaders of your "faith" believe in these tenets much less than you or I do.

So, yes, I have made a conscious choice to reject the Catholic church and any form of religion or "faith-based" dogmas. And, yes you, Dad, had an unwilling hand in influencing my choice. Please don't take this as me "blaming" you for my decision. More often than not the lesson a student learns is NOT the one a teacher intended. Making us pray the rosary every night when we were kids did NOT help me become a better Catholic, but made me realize the importance of family. Your harsh discipline didn't help me get back into line with your way of thinking as much as it pulled me back from the precipice of making mortally wrong choices. Sometimes you drink too much, or are too set in your ways, or are too opinionated about matters of little concern to you. (Who amongst us hasn't been this way?) But never let it be said that you did not love your life or that you cared little for the other human beings with whom you shared this Earth.

Why just the other day, there were two strangers from Mexico who were sitting at your kitchen table sharing a drink and conversation with you. My first thought was "who the hell are these guys?", the expression of caution for which I could barely suppress. But then I came to my senses and realized that it was you being you at your gregarious best; that this is the man I've come to know and admire; the "human" who is the bedrock of my existence. Dad, YOU are the foundation upon which I've built my house.

But there's more to you, no doubt that needs to be noted because inviting relative strangers into your home is NOT a new thing for you. Remember the time many summers ago when you invited virtually all of the kids in the neighborhood -- some of them weren't even my friends! -- up to our East Village apartment for a hot dog lunch? You didn't have enough to feed us all, so what did you do? You told us to sit still while you ran to the A & P supermarket across the street and cleared out their stock of hot dogs and rolls so that everyone had enough to eat. I thought you were nuts then and I was terribly embarrassed by the whole scene. But I never forgot that moment and now I'm quite proud of it and ever grateful to have witnessed it. I wish I knew then that your genuine generosity was a "human" trait to which I should aspire.

Or what about the times you let your friends from St. Brigid's Church "invade" your home in the middle of the night during the Christmas holidays. They had already visited several other apartments, drinking, playing music and telling jokes, all to celebrate the to birth of Jesus. I believe it was called a "paranda". Mom was ready to kill you for opening the door because we were all asleep in bed. But you opened our door, fed them, served them drinks, and joined their chorus of joyful song. You love people Dad! You love your fellow humans! Is that so bad?

Yet, somehow, those examples don't fully capture your greatness. It always seemed like you saved your best moments for people in dire need. Remember that time when Mr. Simon from the 6th floor came down frantic and in desperate need of your help because Mrs. Simon tossed out a broken lamp in which he hid $500 in cash? For me, $500 is still quite a bit of money. So can you imagine what $500 was worth in the 1970s? Mr. Simon knew you worked for the NYC Housing Authority, which is why he came to you for help. You didn't even give his request a second thought, as I recall. You grabbed your "master" keys, went downstairs and opened the utility room to our building, opened the trash compactor and retrieved Mr. Simon's money. You wouldn't even take a reward.

I believe NOW that this was an act of kindness borne NOT out of your Catholic or Christian morals, but of the human ethic of "doing what's right." I have no doubt that a gregarious, kind-hearted soul like yourself, who happens to be a Buddhist would have done the same thing for Mr. Simon. So tell me, what the common denominator in this equation? God? I think not.

Perhaps the most important "life" lesson I learned from you is that your family is your highest priority. How did I learn this? Well, I had plenty of first-hand examples -- you came home every night; you showed up at our ballgames when you could; you took me and Margie on bicycle rides most days in the summer; you were there for us.

But that lesson was never made more clear for me until you were faced with your oldest son’s drug addiction and your second oldest's homosexuality. As I remember it, I disagreed with how you handled Gus and George, mostly because one was an incorrigible thief and the other an embarrassing fag. Oh, how wrong I was back then. Now that I have kids of my own, I'm ashamed of the way I acted back then. But your head was screwed on straight. You knew what was the right thing to do and it was based on your unconditional love of family.

It used to drive me up a wall when Gus would steal stuff from us to pay for his drug habit. Sadly, I still recall some of the things he pilfered -- my bass guitar and my typewriter, among other things. I needed my bass guitar to play my music and I needed my typewriter to bang out term papers for college. Yet, I was helpless to stop him from taking it; all for a dime bag of smack! You would throw him out of the house when he came home high and let him back in when he came in after a bender because he had nowhere else to live. Even after he spent a year in jail for a robbery he committed, you let him back in the house when he got sprung. "He is my son," you would say. "I can't let him live in the street."

Or what about George? Oh, how it must have floored you to know he was a homosexual. I'm sure you had an inkling when he was young that he was "not quite right"; that he was not like your other boys who were active, athletic, and, dare I say it, "macho". "Pero, es mi hijo," you probably said to yourself, using your familar Spanish to exclaim the universally known point of kinship. I'm sure those were the words coursing through your mind as you raced down the stairs of our building in your work pants and "chancletas" (slippers) to help George out in a fight with his homophobe nemisis Robert. You pulled George off of him and finished the ass kicking that he started. Robert was a black man with one of those big 70's afros who came to the mistaken, and near-fatal conclusion that neither George, you nor anyone else would rise up against his gay-bashing bullying. As I recall, from that day, no one would ever fuck with our family ever again. After you and George nearly killed Robert, the message was, and still is -- fight one of us and you fight all of us. Family first.

What surprised me more about your character -- more than the fight -- was when you allowed George to bring one his friends home for Thanksgiving dinner. We were living in Queens then, and, I was really shocked and pissed when they walked in the door because I wanted our celebration to have nothing to do with gays. George was my brother, and that was as far as I would accept homosexuality in my life. Yet, you opened your home and shared your hearth with Tony that Thanksgiving. Little did I know that Tony would repay your act of kindness in ways that benefited me personally. You see, Tony got me the job at Price-Waterhouse in 1984, which pushed me back into college and motivated me to get awesome grades. As a result, I've been gainfully employed, well compensated, and blessed beyond anything I've ever imagined. I know that your allowing Tony to share our table with us was not an act of prescience. But I can't help but wonder and be amazed at the seed you planted.

What I realize now that I didn't then is how incredibly selfish I was; with you, with my brother Gus who was really sick; and with George whose lifestyle I refused to comprehend. Shit. It was all about me back then, even to the detriment of my family. You didn't know this, but once while on vacation in Puerto Rico, I was with Margie and her then husband David Bravo. I found David with another woman in a hotel room and was too much of a fucking coward to bust his jaw. It was all about me then, Dad, and in some ways I'm glad I never told you that story because, if I did, I would have had to get used to drinking my meals. What's worse is that I never told Margie I was sorry.

No doubt, there will be more sorrys to come before I'm through with this life. I'm sorry for my selfishness, but you know as well as I that it's a sorrow whose incubation period has ended. I'm not going to recount that old tripe about not being "the perfect son" or not being "the son you wanted me to be" because you've never burdened me with those unrealistic expectations. What I'm sorry for is hearing everything you said and observing your actions and not understanding one iota of your meaning. But here I am before you, writing to tell you that I get it; that my love must be universal and genuine for my parents, my siblings and their family, my wife and children -- for anyone I befriend in my lifetime.

I have a bit of an admission to make here. I used to laugh when you went out to plant those gardens in our tiny little backyard in Queens. Even when you finally got your "finca" (farm) in New Jersey and began to produce larger quantities of the vegetables and herbs you had in Queens, I still got a chuckle out of watching you till the soil in plaid shorts, black dress socks and dress shoes, which provided a perfect contrast to your short, stubby, milquetoast-colored legs. You looked like an animated lawn ornament. Little did I know that the joke was on me; that you were content to take from the Earth what she would give in return for a soft resting place when the day of your eventual passing comes. If this be the motivation of our God, then how come our cities keep getting bigger, and the world more impersonal and cold? Believe me, Dad, I've struggled with this notion and even prayed for a sign. What I got were a couple of dead friends killed by 18 fanatical Muslims willing to die to make a point that their god was the right, true and only god. Is this what I have to look forward to by leading a life of "faith"? By contrast, how can I be faithful in the face of the proof that love for our fellow humans is all I really need?

This is why I have decided to live a life that places reason before faith. No longer will I believe in the ranting or rhetoric of any man or woman without hearing the proof that validates his or her words. No longer will I accept "because the Bible says so" as the ultimate truth to mankind's ethical questions. Too many people have died needlessly in the cause of their "god" and it's time for the killing to stop. It's time for us to use our minds THEN follow our hearts in the name of humanity.

I love you Dad. I sure hope you understand.

Your ever-grateful son,

Johnny