Dear Dad,
Five years ago today, you left this world and I still think about you all the time. Right now I am in Morocco serving in the Peace Corps; I am trying to do something as noble and sacrificing as you did, being a teacher all those years. But things aren't working out the way that I was hoping they would. I want to make you proud, I want to serve and help and get my hands dirty, I really want to work hard…but I am having a difficult time finding my place in this country. As always, I feel uncomfortable, like I don't belong. I know you would just tell me to buck-up and get over myself, but today Dad, is the one day I let myself wallow in self-pity and doubt. I allow myself to think about you and all the amazing things you accomplished, how you worked four jobs in Alaska to support a family of eight. How when your dreams of sailing around the world were crushed by a huge storm and bad diesel you picked up and moved on and built a different life. I remember your bulging muscles and how you never stopped working or building. Have I disappointed you by not being strong enough? Complaining and concentrating on the negative instead of just getting over it and staying tough? I miss you so much, even though, sometimes you tell me exactly what I DON'T want to hear, but that I know I should do.
I am trying to grow some plants here in Morocco, but apparently, I did not get your green-thumb and no basil or lettuce has shown their little heads. What should I do? I wish you were here to guild me, to help me, to teach me. Why didn't I learn more from you? There are so many things that you know; you are brilliant. Unfortunately, I didn't get that gene either. Yes, I know self-loathing…but you are not here to tell me to get over it and stop crying. I am crying because I want you here to tell me to stop crying and to just figure it out and get going. I am so frustrated; I trying to do good, to help in some way, to contribute, but each and every time I try, there are roadblocks in the way and I don't know how to go around or over them.
If you were alive, I would want you to visit me here, to meet the people that I am trying to serve, to eat their food and drink their tea. And maybe you would look around and tell me that, even touching the lives of a few people, is good enough. I promise I will keep working hard, striving to be a better person and a valuable member of society. I may never build houses with my own bare hands, dig a foundation with a shovel and wheel barrel, teach kids that would otherwise have no direction or support six children, like you, but I will be strong and tough and labor in a way that will help me accomplish my goals.
I love you so much and wish that I could sit by you while you read your Time magazine, make you lunch every day during summer break and pour over math books with you…but those days are gone, now I must cherish the moments we had together and reassure myself that you are, in fact, proud of me.
The baby,
~em
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