My Fathers Shirt

Some of you may have read my other blog titled, " The Hug From Mother".  Its only fair that I followed up with a blog about my father.  Just like my mother, my dad grew up here in Washington D.C. and wasn't very affectionate either.  He didn't grow up in the best of situations when he was younger but made the best out of what he had.  From what I remember as a young child, he wasn't a man of many words.  If he told you he was gonna do something, he did it.  If you needed something, he gave it to you.  One of the things I loved about him the most it no matter what time he came home in the morning on the weekends, he made sure he got up to cooked breakfast for us.  Despite having a hangover we never had a hungry morning or day for that matter.  He also made sure that we never wanted for anything and always provided for us.  Although I wanted love from my mother,  I wanted something different from my father.  I wanted him to be proud of me.  Growing up in Washington DC isn't the easiest thing to do.  Lets just say you have a lot of options to be whatever you wanna be.  I had been working since I was 16 and upon graduation, I decided to join the army.  Well being stationed out in Hawaii, I would always send pictures back to my family.  One of my favorite pictures is of me with a M203 Grenade launcher at the  shooting range   Well fast forward to December 2003,  on my way back to Hawaii from R&R in DC.  I was sitting on  my flight back Oahu,  I couldn't help but wonder what my father thought about what I was doing.  The few times  I visited them, he only asked a few questions about my life in the army.  I knew I only needed two things from my parents, to be told I was loved and to be told he was proud of me.  When you are a deployed Soldier, its hard to call back home when you're actually out doing shit.  With that being said,  I didn't call home a lot and when I did, I didn't talk long.  In February 2005, out tour in Iraq ended and most of us were happy to come back to Hawaii.  But a big portion of us had family in other places.  It was time for me to visit my family back in DC and was looking forward to it.  However, I still never knew were my dad stood with what I had made of myself.  I landed at Washington Reagan and was on my way to see my parents.  When I got out of the car I could see my dad in a distance.  As I walked towards him I noticed something, he had a black t-shirt on.  And on that shirt was the picture I sent him years ago with me holding the M203 when I was at the shooting range in Hawaii.  My mother said he would wear that shirt all the time and would always tell people that he had a son fighting in the war.  It was his way of showing that he was proud of me.  It was the t-shirt that told the story.  I could look in his eyes and tell that he was happier for me to be home than I was.  As the evening came to an end, he told me that he was proud of me and that he loved me.  That meant the world to me.  And guess what,  I told him that I was proud of him as well.  I took a lot of great things from my dad and learned a lot from him.  Since I was stationed in Hawaii most of my career, my parents never got to see any of my promotions ceremonies.  Well in 2010,  that all changed.  Not only did my family get to see my promotion but my dad pinned on my rank as well.   Whats funny about life is we all have our own way of telling people we care about or something along those lines.  It might be in a verbal form or it might be printed on a shirt.

P.S.

It's never too late to tell your child that you're proud of them.