DEAR POP,

Dear Pop,

My relationship with you, perhaps, has been complex in a different way than it was with mom, who was severely ill for seventeen years until she passed.

As a little girl, I rememer being daddy's girl. Sitting in your lap was my favorite spot and I was imbued with an innate feeling that you were my number one. Your favorite hairbrush, your favorite songs, the way you used to enjoy mah-johng and always smiled in deep contentment with your nightly beer never made much sense to me, but none of that mattered. I loved you anyway. 

Dreams were shattered and love was broken--more than once--as I grew up. First with the way I was exposed to you and mom's messy divorce as a fourteen year-old; then, in growing up to see that you were just a man too.

I noticed a deep sorrow in your eyes. One that will probably never be spoken. As an empath, I resonated too much with it, until I learned to see it apart from myself.

Although you worried that I got into some f*ed up cult back in 2001 when I started yoga and went vegetarian, by 2010 when you were diagnosed with cancer, you decided to give yoga a try--and actually let me teach you. You developed your own practice which you keep up to this day, 3 times a week. And that just rocks.

Go on being you, Pops. I will champion you. With all your beers, I will champion you as you are. Like you, at the end of the day, have always championed me too. I love you. And Thank You. For Being You.

Written on Father’s Day, June 16th 2024.