Rethink what you hate before it is too late.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about hate. It's something we all have the capacity for, and anytime you have a discussion about hate, you usually get some sort of saying that comes along with it, like, “sometimes we hate things that we really love or need,” referring to people we have crushes on or unattainable goals. My personal favorite, and the old standby for teachers and parents, “hate is a strong word.”
For most of my life, I thought hate wasn’t a strong enough word. My capacity to hate, from childhood to early adulthood was limitless. I hated certain foods. I hated certain chores. I hated the grocery store, and shopping for clothes. I hated how my skin and hair didn’t look like any of my friends’. I hated my absent father.
Out of everything, I got the most hate out of that last one. I had never met my father. Until recently, I hadn’t bothered to even find a photo of him. It was so all-encompassing that the very thought of him would put me in a vindictive and evil mood.
I believe it all stemmed from moments in my childhood. As a boy, I had no concept of anything other than my own family dynamic. There was my mother, there was me, and in my mind, that was all that a family consisted of. Around that age where I would go to friends’ houses and play with them, I’d meet their families, and to my surprise, many of my friends had fathers. It didn’t matter if they were their biological fathers or their step fathers, or their father that they saw on weekends sometimes; they all had them. I think it was around this time that the questions began to form in my head. “Why don’t I have a dad? Why can’t I go on fishing trips, or wrestle in the living room.” I asked my mother about him, and to my adolescent mind, her description of a smart, devoted and loving man who had fallen from grace from the temptation of drugs, had painted a picture of an evil man, who had deprived me of any hope of a father-son relationship. That evil man, the man who was not there, became the first thing I truly hated, with all the conviction that can be mustered by an ignorant child.
I see that this hate fostered more hate in my life. When I reached my teenage years, it had become a fixation of mine. I’d day dream of seeing him on the street, and hurling myself at him with kicks and punches. I’d dream of him coming to my school and picking me up, and when I’d lay eyes on him, I’d scream, and tell him all the reasons I truly hated him. I kept all of this hate to myself however. I’d imagine most of my close friends and relatives had no idea how much this hatred revolved around my life.
When I was finishing up high school and starting to look forward towards college, my hatred waned enough for my curiosity to set in. I sent him an email, secretly. I received a reply instantly. The new message must have sat in my inbox for a week before I dared to open it. I read it one afternoon on a whim. It scared the hell out of me. The man on the other end of the line sounded exactly like me. The way he thought was the way I thought. He said things that I had said to myself in my own head and never articulated.
From pure contrariness, I never replied. It was my own form of revenge I suppose. But then new questions began to form. He sounded like he’d wanted to be a part of my life. He sounded like he knew about me and accepted me. I had new questions for my mother, and we reopened an unspoken chapter of both our lives.
I understood then what my childhood self could not. Things were not as simple as I’d thought they were. I discovered that while I had been bitter about his absence, I had never considered what life would have been like with an addict father. My mother had. She rescued me from a life of betrayal and heartbreak, at least until I was old enough to make the decision for myself.
It took me two years to call him. He answered, and I panicked, saying “I’m sorry, wrong number.” He called back, and then I had a conversation with him. He didn’t talk like I did, but he sounded like me. He told me the words I didn’t know I needed to hear. “I’m so glad you didn’t grow up with me around. I would have made your life hell.”
He told me he’d be on the next flight over if I wanted. I told him no, and that we should talk again, and see where things went from there. That was the last time I spoke to him.
I called again with no answer. He never called me back. After that, hatred radiated off of me like steam. I began lashing out at people for no reason. I would have people tell me I’m clenching my fists for no reason. Still, I told no one of any of this. It was my secret pain, and I held on to it like a drowning man clings to a raft.
Six months passed, and the hate never faded, but it did drift to the back of my thoughts, only surfacing when I wasn’t distracted. My mother sat me down, and almost from nowhere told me that she thought my father had passed away, tears in her eyes. My first thought was that of an immature and self-tortured child. “It serves him right!” I screamed inside. All of my hate felt justified and revenged, just for that one moment. Then my brain started to work again. He had passed a few months prior, shortly after my call with him. He had succumbed to cancer. He had never had the opportunity to call me back. All that hate I had felt. Was any of it deserved by him?
It’s been a while since then, about a year. I was sitting in my car, thinking of that first email I had with him. He had told me, “there is so much I want to tell you about, me and yourself.” Now that he’s gone, he will never have the opportunity to tell me what he meant by that. My blind hate and vindictive mind made a decision, based purely on ignorance and pain. Because of that decision, I will never get to know what he had to tell me. I do not wholly regret my hatred or my reaction to his absence, but I wish I would have been mature enough to look at that hate, and rethink who it was really directed at. My hatred towards my father had always been a hatred towards myself. I had used his absence as a way to justify my unhappiness, instead of searching in myself for what was making me unhappy. I made my decision and I must adhere to it; I have no choice in the matter anymore. I urge my friends and loved ones to rethink their hate. Some of it will always be justified. I still hate shopping for clothes and I probably will until I die. On the other hand, some hate is born from loss, or pain, or fear. I urge everyone to look at that kind of hate, and really decide if it’s worth holding onto. We always think there is time to rethink things later, but time can run out when you least expect it.
