Remember who you are.
That's what you would always say right before I was about to make a choice. You heard Mufasa say it to Simba, and decided that even though our family wasn't a pride of lions, it would be fitting advice.
But dramatic irony doesn't just stay in Disney movies. Sure enough, your plagiarized words rang in my ears as I watched the paramedics work. As I watched mom cry. As I held my sister in my arms. Remember who you are? I was now the only man in the house. All the responsibility was on me.
It's what I heard when I spoke at your funeral. I couldn't find the words or the courage to speak until I saw Chris. That guy who you saved. The one with no job and his wife had left him because he was a drunk. The one who was gonna kill himself if you hadn't checked on him. He is fine now. He got a nice job selling refrigerators and his wife and son came back like a happy ending. I'd be lying if I didn't say I was jealous. But the words came from the clouds, a silhouette in the sky, and I told the world. I told the attendees of this church about you. The church you never liked that because baptists take too long to let you go home. I knew who you were. I knew about your depression, the anxiety, and how your father let you down so much that you promised yourself that you'd be the best one you could be.
And you were. Even if your advice was just "Remember who you are."
Which I heard again, when I enrolled into college later that year. I didn't want to. But you practically begged me to, and I promised you I would go to school someday because you never could. And you always told me promises were worth keeping. Remeber who i am? I'm a fighter who keeps his word, just like my old man.
Which wasn't easy when mom kicked me out. When she went insane and sent me to the therapists because she thought I was crazy. Or when I was homeless for 6 months, sleeping in the parking garage and showering at the YMCA right before they close. When I used your life insurance check to pay for college. When I still wear clothes from 5 years ago even though I've dropped 70 pounds because I'm too poor to eat and running is the only stress relief I can find. When every girl I meet runs away from me because they are 20 and focused on themselves and don't have the time or energy to focus on a basket case. When I can't even make friends because who could possibly understand me?
But it didn't matter. It still doesnt. Because I'm a fighter who keeps his word, just like my old man. So dad, I'm going to graduate in may. I'm going to keep my promise to you. But here's the problem: I don't remember who I am, because I'm not the same person anymore. The sweet gentle chubby boy with a cheesy smile has been replaced by a starving, broken man with a bottle of wine and a stolen sleeping bag. Your son. Me. Once I walk across that stage, this horrible journey will be over but who am I now? What have I become? Remember who I am? Jesus Christ. I'm not the king of the pride lands, I'm just a fucking kid with your red hair and your gray eyes. I haven't been sleeping in a jungle partying with a meerkat and a warthog. I've been sleeping in abandoned apartments studying my ass off so the professors will give me the grade I need. Who am I supposed to be? The same person I was 5 years ago?
Remember who I am? Okay. I'm anything I have to be to survive. Or at least, that's who I am until may. And after that? I don't know. I guess that's why I'm writing this. I miss you dad.
Sorry if this isn't an appropriate format or place for this. I just needed to put this out there.
Submitted August 25, 2015 at 09:57AM by grantacular http://ift.tt/1JinkiF offmychest
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