A Father’s Love

If I could tell the truth… if I could be honest with myself… I could finally admit what I am, and what you are. I am not good. But you are. And you loved me no matter what.

Father.

And I would have to let my mind go back to that moment on the bridge. When I saw you for the first time in a long time. When I saw you for the last time. 

“Ben!” You barked my name, and it echoed off the walls. To anyone else it might have sounded a strange greeting after so many years. But not to me. It sounded like straying too close to the shipping yard. Like using the Force to lift something a little too heavy and risking dropping it on my head. Like storming away after another argument with Mom, but Dad isn’t willing to let it end that way. It sounded like my father calling me back.

I wasn’t willing. I tried to keep a distance. I refused to call you “father.”

You told me to take off my mask. I thought you meant my helmet, but looking back, I think you saw through the imperious persona I’d crafted for so long, the wall of darkness I’d tried to build around myself that I held up even to you. 

You said you wanted to see my face. No… wait… you said you expected to see the face of your son. Your son. Even after all I’ve done, all I’ve become.

Did it surprise you, how much I grew up in all those years? Did you expect that I’d take off that mask and still be a little boy? Were you afraid that I was wearing a mask because, like my grandfather, I’d been disfigured in some way, and you were just bracing for the hurt of seeing something awful?

It was just me. A little older. A little darker. But me. 

Me as I am now, though, father. Not the child you knew. A man who has seen dark things. Done dark things. 

You pointed out the lies I was believing. You called me back to the truth. You said everything I needed to hear. 

You said… “Come home.”

Home. I haven’t felt at home since… Since I burned the last one I had. Since I walked away from the only people who truly loved me.

There was a moment there, on that bridge, a choice set in front of me. Run back to the arms of my father, or tear out the rest of my heart and leave it behind. You were ready to take it all away, to give me freedom, to take my burden, my darkness, my rage.

But were you ready for the way I gave it to you?

As I look back, I think you knew. I think you knew the moment I refused to let go. Maybe you knew the moment you walked onto the bridge. 

I know because, even as the light in your eyes faded, you fixed on my face. You reached up and you touched my face. To the very end, you were calling me home.

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You’re gone. But I’m not. I’m still alive. It’s not too late. Your love still calls me home.

If I could tell the truth… if I could be honest with myself… I could finally admit what I am, and what you are. I am not good. But you are, Father. And you love me no matter what.