I’ve always thought my father was indestructible — impermeable to pain and unbreakable. He had some sort of inherent ability, some built-in capacity that I would never have.
And I know, now, that my father wasn’t built in such a way. Rather he was made and remade, broken down and mended to be impervious to all things, so it seemed.
He was broken as a child, a son of immigrants in a poor community as he struggled to fit in. He was broken as a teen, homeless and sleeping on park benches while he went to high school. When I was born, my parents left the California city life they knew for a small town in Oregon, because this would give me better opportunities than they had had.
But even moving to Oregon was a trial for my family.
My father moved an 8-hour drive away, weeks before my mom and me. He stayed in a tent on a friend’s lawn while he looked for work. His first job paid $4.75 an hour, but it offered him an apprenticeship as a butcher. He would spend more than 20 years in that career – work at 5 a.m., five days a week, sometimes more.
Growing up in small town Oregon, we were poor, but happy. I remember being happy more than being poor. He never seemed to mind the limited funds we had, so I didn’t mind either.
I never wished for wealth and nice things when I was growing up. I only wanted to be indestructible, like him. But I never struggled the way he had, and the irony, of course, is that his sacrifices shielded me from the life that would have made me like him.
And so it was that when my son was born, I only hoped to be a shadow of the father I had. | PL
Additionally, please read this article by Philip Luna published by the Prison Journalism Project, ICE Arrests Have Made My. Dad Scared to Visit Me In Prison