As scary and abusive as my father was, I still think I eventually would have found a way to reconcile with him in adulthood, had he not killed himself when I was ten. Though I’m not the most successful of individuals financially, I still think he would have been proud of who I became as a person. Somehow I’m certain of this.

Like many who claw their way forth from disadvantaged backgrounds, I often felt the urge and impulse to throw it all away to drugs, thievery—and much worse—as a way of dealing with feelings of impotence and inadequacy, as a way of lashing out at myself and the world. But instead I somehow chose to self-cultivate, slowly but surely, over time. A never ending process of ever evolving fruition.

If I were my child, I would be proud of him, knowing the impossibility of what he had to overcome both internally and circumstantially. And so sometimes I wish I could show myself to the father who left my world, who left life when I was ten, and enjoy even just a moment of his acknowledgment, his praise. The proud father of a survivor who learned to thrive in his own way.

I wrote this poem, my 19^th villanelle, as I pondered what my father has missed out on. I know that he would have wanted to be here for this, to see me find my way. So as much as I lost him when he died, it seems like he lost me even more. I think this is the way with the suicide of a parent—The parent misses out on everything. The child adapts and ultimately finds his or her way, but the parent misses out on absolutely everything. It is the ultimate loss.