Unlabeled

For 365 days I dreaded the question. The year before my mom gave me a DVD inside of an unlabeled case. If you know my mom, persistence is one of her strong suits. And for the next year she frequently asked if I had watched the recording on the disc. I’m sure I seemed like an uncaring son because each time I answered no.

But it wasn’t a matter of not caring. I cared a great deal. In fact, I had thought about watching it nearly every day since she had given it to me.

Rewind 28 years earlier. I was 2-years old and my father had just passed away. When I think about him I feel a sense of pride for the man I knew him to be. I’ve thought about my dad a lot since that day. But the memories I hold aren’t really memories. They’re patched together stories and descriptions told to me by family and friends.

Over this 28-year period I’ve crafted an idea of who he was – pretty accurate as far as I can tell. He was strong physically, mentally, and spiritually. He loved his family and cared deeply for anyone who crossed his path.

But he was also a man of conviction. And that might be what I think about most. He would preach from the pulpit when our church needed him to. And he met his final day with courage rather than fear.

The DVD my mom gave me captured some of these last moments.

It was the last recording of my dad while he was still alive in the hospital, filmed during the days leading up to a failed liver transplant.

My mom gave it to me as a way to see who my dad really was, and, in a sense, experience the dad I never knew. You would think I’d want to watch the video right away. Of course, who wouldn’t want to get a glimpse of their father whom they had no memory of? But I had developed a version of who my dad was. And for thirty years that’s what I held on to whether it was accurate or not.

This video could disrupt the narrative I had already written for myself. 

So, I didn’t watch it. I couldn’t. In fact, I didn’t think I ever would. Each time I thought about the DVD I was left asking, “What if it shows another version of my father – one that doesn’t align with the one in my mind?”

Each time my mom would ask I would say no, I still hadn’t watched it. My wife would often follow by asking, “Yeah, why haven’t you watched it yet?”

I never explained why. I wasn’t sure I could put the reason into words. I don’t think it would make sense to anyone else. So, the question would come up and I would give my seemingly senseless answer and we would move on.

It was far too great of a risk. So, what did I do with the disc? I put it on a bookshelf. And there it remained for the next 365 days. But I never forgot about it. My eyes were drawn to it each time I walked past it. The thin, unlabeled plastic case seemed to glow between the books it was wedged. Like a plastic pandora’s box I worried it contained more than I could handle.

Day after day I walked past it. And each time I ignored it. 

Life is full of things we can’t control. But this decision, this reality of my dad was something I felt I could control. And I wasn’t ready to give it up.

But early one afternoon, I found myself alone in my office staring at the DVD on my shelf. My chair was turned toward my bookshelf. And like I often did, I contemplated watching the DVD. In my head I had played out the scene of watching it a hundred times. I imagined it the same way each time: It would be late at night, Kara and the kids would be away, and I would be alone in a quiet house. I would pour a glass of whiskey, pop in the DVD, and watch the video play out.

But this moment wasn’t like that at all. Everyone was home, the house wasn’t quiet at all, and I was drinking coffee. But there, among a row of books, the DVD seemed to call out. It was almost as if it had a promise of its own sort of guidance. And the weight of not watching it became greater than the possibility of destroying the idea of what I’d held on to for so many years.

Before my thought was complete I found myself reaching for the case more out of reflex than thought. I looked at it sitting on my lap for a moment. I took a sip of cold coffee and slowly popped open the case. The DVD was blank like the case that held it. I paused, looking at myself in the reflection of the disc. Then took a deep breath and slid it into my laptop. 

The video player turned on and the video began to play. The 32-year-old recording was grainy, but I knew exactly who I was looking at. My dad was talking in front of me. It’s hard to explain how I felt. For the first time in my life, I was listening and watching my dad with recollection. I watched him talk with his dear friends – the same ones who had shared countless stories of him in the years since. I could see the love he had for my mom sitting next to him. He spoke with pride as he mentioned his three children. 

And then I saw a little boy walk into the frame. A boy who was almost the same age as my little boy. The child was me. And I watched myself climb up next to my dad. It was like I was given a front-row seat to an experience I wanted all these years. To experience the bond of a father and son.

In that moment I saw who my dad really was and it affirmed the reality I had patched together in my mind. The one I had held on to for 30 years. I sat there observing the love my dad had for me. It was beautiful, it was relieving, and it was affirming all at the same time.

In that moment, I understood that reality must be accepted. Living in a world of what-ifs and created memories would never allow me to move on. Growth could only happen if I was willing to accept the past – both the good and the difficult.