This will be the last conversation about my father for awhile.
I hesitated to write it, because I question my motives, but it's part of my truth.
Papapa (my father) left a will.
Will's are such cold and detached documents. I need to make sure I leave a letter with mine, to make the last thoughts my son's hear from me, not be some legal version of me distributing my assets.
Regardless... other than the generic statements about my mother and I being the benefactors of his assets, my father made one specific request...
that "my son, Nestor Miguel Benavides, return to his roots as a Catholic", or some version of those words...
I heard them once, reread them, and now I try to some extent to forget them.
The first time I heard them, it hurt. In one moment, I was back to all of the moments in my life where my father made me feel like I was "not enough", like my decisions where always "wrong".
My immediate reaction in that moment, and I FELT it, was my SHIELD go UP! I, for a brief moment, distanced myself from loving him, from his memory, from all of it.
And, I breathed, and a moment later, I was back.
I smiled, "My father just couldn't help himself. He just was who he was and believed what he believed. And, he wrote that because in some strange way, he felt he was supposed to."
Years ago, this would have been the type of "symbol" that I would have used to hate him. And, maybe not hate him, but to disassociate myself from him emotionally and in all ways that I could.
Years ago, this would have hurt me deeply.
No more.
Obviously, you may be thinking, is he just ignoring the anger?
I don't think so, because I felt it for a moment. I am just choosing to see it differently.
I know my father loved me. I know he was proud of me. And, I know that my decision to not follow Jesus more closely was against all that he had been taught. I know that my choosing the Lutheran religion for my family, for my children and thus for myself hurt him. It hurt him possibly more than his words may have ever hurt me. It was me saying, in his mind, I don't value what you taught me, nor what you stood for.
I am not a religious person, and while I try to live by Christian Values (which I think are most moral values matching most religions) I am truly no more Lutheran than Catholic.
So, I think of my father's last will and testament, and I find myself thinking, "Sorry father, no can do." And, I am certain he knew that would be my answer. And, yet he still felt compelled to write it and leave that as his dying wish.
As much as I would love to honor his last wish, I cannot do it without feeling it authentically. I don't know that he ever truly understood that.
Now, it's not that I will not be a devout Christian, I very well may be. But, I will never do it "because my father asked me to". That is not in my fiber.
What stings more than his request for me to believe something that he knew I struggled to believe, was that he died still not really knowing who I am... not realizing that I am not someone who does something because I am asked.... I do things because I am compelled to do them, because I believe them to be right and necessary.
And, the irony, is that for that to "sting" me, requires me to not realize who he was... He was a man who did not understand the difference between those two things, so he did the best that he could with what he knew.
The irony of that truly makes me laugh. My hurt comes from him not understanding me, but by choosing to believe that I fail to understand him.
My dad didn't put that in his will to hurt me. He didn't put a "wish" in his will to leave his last words to me as a reminder of our disharmony.
He loved me, and he didn't know the difference.
I get that and can't fault him for who he was and what he didn't know. I will keep missing him.
And, because I get that,
I won't leave that a will of wishes for my children...
My will, will embrace and celebrate their IS... will respect and fuel their WANT...
My WILL will be ;-)
Will always be...
in harmony,
Nestor