Wounds

Some wounds never heal, the ones underneath our skin. They linger and fester years after they were first inflicted. Eight years ago this month my father died in a car accident. But really the idea of my father died years before that. I carry with me still the pain of his betrayal. I was nineteen. Today it manifests in ways I could never have imagined back then. They continue to haunt me, to dog me, to colour my relationships. Perhaps it was because he died before any resolution between us was made. I didn't have a chance to make peace with my him or to forgive.

Eight years later, I am still angry and the feeling of betrayal is a wound that never gets a chance to heal. One little flick and there it bleeds again. I never did reconcile my superhero image of him with the reality of his being human. That process I was able to negotiate carefully with my mother as I grew older. In adulthood I came to know her and forgave her for being human. My two images of her, the one that has significantly influenced me in shaping who I am, that ideal of her, remains carefully preserved along with the 'real' her. These two have found harmony in my head, the sacred and the profane. And my father? He never got a chance for redemption. For us, his children, he had no explanations. He sinned just because he could. And so in my head men sin just because they can.