QUACK

Father, Brother, Daughter

“He must manage his own household well,

Keeping his children under control with perfect dignity;

For if a man does not know how to manage his own household,     

how can he take care of the church of God?”

                                                            -1 Timothy 3: 4-5

THIS CHAPTER IS FROM ALLEN'S POINT OF VIEW.

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When you were younger, much younger than your seventeen years now, when you fancied yourself to be Wendy from Peter Pan, when your greatest fear had been something I could take care of by brandishing a flashlight, I lived in a constant state of fear.

I feared that you would be hurt, that you would be taken away from me, that you would discover all my dark secrets. I feared that you would outgrow me, that you would kiss me goodnight one day, wave goodbye to me the next. I feared that you would grow to be much larger than what the breadth of my arms could contain.

Over the years, I have watched you take on one interest then another, moving through a plethora of hobbies and sports till you found one that spoke to you. I watched you mould your identity like puzzle pieces, until the bigger picture was your face, your future.

I had raised you the best way I knew how. I tried to pour into you the same values that I had been given: fear of the Lord, and honesty, and kindness, and compassion, and respect. I have made you a rock-solid Christian, and you know to turn to God whenever you saw fit.

You are my greatest accomplishment, Sasha. You are my favorite person in the world. But in you lay my worst nightmares, my biggest fears, that all that I had given you and kept from you will be the things that would be your undoing.

They say the best thing a parent could give their child apart from an unconditional, unshakeable, unwavering love, is roots and wings.

There is no fear of a lack of wings. Before me you have grown into such a beautiful, wonderful young lady: I have done myself and your mother proud.

But your roots, they’ve been planted on shaky, loose ground. And I have tried my best to make it firm and stable, and that meant hiding everything from you.

Today, you peel back the covers and realize I am not who I am, that you find me cowering and ashamed in all the lies I have told.

Today, one of my worst fears has been realized.

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There are days I wake up and I feel that my life is one big routine. I wake up, make you breakfast, go to some church meeting or other, say the mass, hear confessions, come home. I eat the dinner you have prepared me, take a shower, brush my teeth, say a prayer, set my alarm to do the exact same thing when I wake up the next day, and then I sleep.

Some days, this routine is broken by some couple’s wedding, a child’s baptism, a dying person’s last anointing. But mostly, what I have to address in the things I do are my obligations to you, my obligations to the community, and my obligations to God. I do not allow much room for myself: I think this is the price I have to pay.

I say mass as often as I can, and help as much as I can in the church. Most days, I am convinced this is because God wants me to do this. And then there are days that I am there because I feel the need to overcompensate, as a means to atone for my sins.