My father passed 7 years ago today. Father's Day.

I was sobbing in a Wal-Mart Parking lot right before my birthday.

Seven months before that moment, my father had received his diagnosis: Stage 4 liver cancer. He responded by saying “If God wants me to live, I’ll live. If God wants me to die, then I’ll die.”

He didn’t accept treatment. So on June 16th, 2017, he left our world literally choking on his own body. He was only 51 years old.

When my brother called to tell me Dad died, he simply said to me:

“I wish you were here with us.”

See, I was on the phone in the Wal-Mart Parking lot, hundreds of miles from the bed where my father took his last breath.

I cried tears of anger and rage, tears of confusion and empathy, tears of sadness and pent up frustration. It was like a dam with years of repression suddenly broke. I cried of relief, knowing that he couldn’t tell me to stop crying anymore.

We had a complicated relationship. I imagine I’m not alone.

He loved when we would play sports together. He hated when I disagreed with him.

He loved when he got to cheer me on at a game. He hated how I didn’t do it right.

He loved when he got to tell me stories of his past. He hated how I didn’t thank him for not beating me, when that’s what his dad would’ve done.

He loved when he got to give his gifts to his family. He hated that I didn’t give him the grandson he wanted.

He loved making omelettes in the morning. He hated when his weren’t the best anymore after I started cooking.

He loved getting ice cream with us. He hated when he wasn’t the center of our world.

He loved going to church with us. He hated it when I left home at 18 and never came back.

He loved having the whole story so he could use the information against us. He hated that he couldn’t be there to give us all his wisdom all the time.

He loved being the center of attention. He hated that he couldn’t do more when he was dying.

And through all of this and more, I learned a lot about love and a lot about hate.

But mostly, I hated him. All the lies, the anger, the frustration, and most of all:

I hated that he didn’t take care of himself and would rather have DIED than heal.

That’s not the fate I want for anyone, but, especially for him. We still had so much to work on, and I never got to tell him that I forgave him.

Not until I wrote it in my journal two whole years after he died.

What would my life, and his life, have been like if he had people to talk to? If he was willing to learn and to grow? If he had a community who was challenging him to be more, to grow out of his hatred, to move into abundant love and begin his emotional healing journey from the shit he went through as a kid?

I don’t know. But I imagine that the world would be a little bit better of a place.

What I learned was that we never know when our time is up.
I could spend each day hoping, waiting, and wishing for a better life.
Wishing for a better job.
Scrolling through Instagram in search of answers.
Distracting myself with escapism through video games, alcohol, drugs, and porn.

OR.

I can start moving forward, even though I wasn’t sure how to do it.

When I had finally written the full letter to my dad, in the years after he died, the pages were stained with tears. But this time, they were filled with hope. With joy. With possibility.

I released all the anger, the fear, the confusion, and I recognized that I’d come to a new place in my life. A place where I didn’t know what the next step was, just that I was going to take it and trust that I wasn’t going to have to figure it out all by myself.

For the first time in my life, I KNEW Dad was on my side.

What about you? How would your life be different if you were able to start taking those next steps? What kind of father would you be, or how would your relationship with your dad be different?

It’s costing you so much to stay stuck. It’s truly killing you to not be moving forward, to be stuck in hatred, anger, bitterness, confusion, and fear.

This message is a call for you to move through it now so it doesn’t kill you later.

In just a few days, we will have a community for you to begin moving through with other brothers here with the same goal: heal. Whatever you’ve gone through, you will get an incredible amount of tools to go on that healing journey, whether it’s dad stuff, relationship stuff, self-hatred stuff… anything you want to move through so you can live a life that’s less painful and more enjoyable.

Do it for you. Do it for your dad. Do it for your child. Just do something. From a bereaved son, I’m asking: start today.

A practice you can do: get out a journal and reflect on your relationship with your father. You can use this as a prompt:

“What was something your dad said to you that’s always stuck with you? Why do you think that was what stuck?”

Brothers. We get to support each other, especially those whose dads are no longer with us. I stand for you. I’m on your side.

As always,

I love you; take care of yourself.
Anthony