My father passed away on the first of December, and I couldn’t shed a single tear, nor did I want to. I had already wasted enough tears on that man.

Denial

The truth was that I had already become fatherless thirty-four years ago. 

I was twenty-six then. I took a red-eye flight from New York City and arrived back home at my father’s doorstep with a girlfriend and a Doctor of Medicine. 

Two strikes. 

His plan for me, from the very moment I was born, had always consisted of three things: Taking over the family business of selling antiques, marrying our family friend Josaiah, and living happily ever after in Newport Beach, California, in a house no more than ten minutes away from his. Yet, here I was. I took a deep breath. I already knew it was going to be a long goddamn day. 

The front door swung open.

“Valentina!”

“Hey, Pops.” I grinned. We embraced. It felt strange to be in his arms, knowing I was keeping such a significant part of my life concealed from him. Come to think of it, he didn’t really know me that well at all. “I go by Val now, by the way. It’s shorter. Sweeter. I like it.”

“Eh. I like Valentina. It’s elegant.” 

I shrugged nonchalantly. My father was the stubborn type. Once he had his mind set, there was no changing it.

“Who’s your friend?” My father gestured toward Winnie. 

I swallowed nervously. The script I had planned out in my mind was falling apart by the second. I couldn’t remember more than––“That’s Winnie,” I told him. I stuttered a bit as I tried to figure out a right way to say it, but I eventually blurted out, “She’s my girlfriend.”

I stared my father right in the eyes, but I wish I hadn’t, because in the next few seconds, I witnessed every single emotion that passed through him. I knew exactly what was going through his mind, a burden I would never quite be able to forget. Shock came first. Understandably. Once he absorbed the information, disappointment followed. That was still manageable. Disappointment was temporary. But what I saw next is now all that I remember when I think of my father. He looked at me coldly, as if I were a stranger, with pure disgust and hatred embedded in his pupils. 

“You better be fucking joking, Valentina.”

I shook my head as I tried to hold back tears. He shut the door. I heard the lock click. And that was that. 

Looking back, that was the exact moment I lost my father. I had been losing him for quite some time before that––I grew older, we grew apart––but June 14th, 2006, marked the end of our relationship. 

Of course, I didn’t believe it then. My father just needed time to understand, I thought. He would eventually understand, right? My mother reassured me that he would, when I called her up from my hotel room. “He loves you, sweetheart. Don’t be silly.”

I trusted her. I stayed in Newport Beach for a week and endured several painful family dinners––without Winnie, of course. I would never put her through that. My father didn’t want me there, but my mother was insistent. She probably regretted it afterward, because my father and I fought like never before. I wasn’t the timid little girl he remembered me as, and he wasn’t the same man who raised me, either. My mother retired to her room whenever one of us would implode, but I couldn’t even begin to be angry with her when it was my father who was relentlessly swearing at me. He somehow found a way to weave in every single one of my flaws into his arguments. Yet, even so, I foolishly believed that he loved me. A father’s love was supposed to be unconditional, right? I told myself he just didn’t understand. He was raised in a conservative home. He didn’t know any better. It wasn’t his fault. 

And then, on the day before I returned to New York, my father told me the truth: “I can’t love you if you decide to be like this.”

“You don’t love me?” 

Once again, I stood at my father’s doorstep, and though I searched his eyes hoping to find some hint of guilt or hidden love, I saw nothing but loathing.

“When you get your head out of your ass and realize that this isn’t who you are… then I’ll love you. Until then, don’t even fucking call. I don’t want you as a daughter. I didn’t raise you to be… like this.” And for the second time in a week, he shut the door in my face––only this time, I didn’t expect to be coming back soon.

And thus began the many years of mourning the loss of my father.

Anger

My cousin walked me down the aisle. 

I went first, so I could watch Winnie walk down afterward. Perhaps I shouldn’t have. She walked down with her father, their arms linked, and he gazed at her with pride, as if he truly admired the person she had grown to be. And I couldn’t help but feel my heart tear a little more. So, while I was starting a new chapter of my life with Winnie, my beautiful Winnie, I was still thinking about my goddamn father. As I was saying my vows, promising Winnie my endless and unconditional love, I was thinking about my shitty father, and how he had broken all his promises to me.

Bullshit. I was twenty-nine then. I hadn’t spoken to him in three years, hadn’t visited Newport Beach, yet still, he managed to taint my goddamn wedding day without even showing up. My mother didn’t come either. My father didn’t want her to, and she didn’t care enough to argue. Or she simply didn’t care. 

I began to resent them––both of them, but mostly my father. I hated him, and I hated myself for making him hate me. 

I flew back out to Newport Beach after my honeymoon to confront them, once and for all. Winnie thought I needed closure. I wanted answers. Maybe those were the same things, but either way, all I got was a whole load of crap.

“You should come with us to church tomorrow,” my father said gruffly. 

Those were the first words he uttered to me since I had left here three years ago. I contemplated leaving. I didn’t need to go through another crisis of faith. 

“I set up a meeting with the pastor. To talk about, you know… your situation,” my father continued. I stared at him incredulously. He still wouldn’t even make eye contact with me.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Now he looked at me. “I come home after three goddamn years, and you still can’t think about anything else other than me being gay?”

My father stood up and faced me, boiling with rage. “Don’t say those fucking words in my house.” 

“Well, I’m fucking gay. You can’t change––”

He slapped my face. It stung. I just stood there, at a loss for words. Nothing could express the hurt I felt in that moment, the suppressed anger and hate built up from over the years. I finally understood what it meant to see red. Caught up in the storm of emotions in my head, I didn’t even notice my father had walked away until seconds later. Goddamn it. I dug my fingernails into my palm, channeling my fury toward him into myself.

As I stepped outside and closed the door behind me, I wondered if this would be the last time I ever set foot here. 

Bargaining

No matter how far I tried to distance myself from the whole situation, it was like trying to escape from a ball and chain. The naive little girl in me still longed for reconciliation.

When I was thirty-five, my mother passed away from a stroke. My father and I stood by her open casket at the funeral, side by side, in silence, for a few minutes. We could keep it peaceful for her, but we didn’t speak a word to each other for my entire time in Newport Beach. Little did he know I was now grieving the loss of two parents. The people from my childhood were now but a memory.

I stayed behind in the church after the funeral, when everyone else had gone, but I felt strangely out of place. The church was silent, void of people, but it seemed as though all eyes were on me. Was it obvious I hadn’t been here in a while? I had stopped believing after coming out to my father––or, perhaps, I didn’t want to believe. How could I, when he used Bible verses and Catholic preachings to tell me that I was a sinner? Whenever I thought of God, all I heard was my father screaming, “God hates sinners like you,” or, better yet, “God hates faggots like you!” And I believed him. I couldn’t help but feel utterly shunned by the Church. 

But now, here I was, kneeling in an empty pew.

My mother is gone, and I don’t even know if she ever actually loved me. I don’t want the same thing to happen with my father. I just want to know that some part of him still cares, because if he doesn’t, that means he never loved me to begin with––he only loved who he wanted me to be. And it hurts so much to think that both my parents hate the person I’ve become. The person I am. Am I so unlovable? Am I so unworthy? I ask you to let my father and I reconnect. There has to be some way to fix our relationship. Thank you, God, for still being there.

Depression

But my father and I never reconnected. 

I don’t blame God. Some things are unfixable. 

Love can’t be forced.

Once I came to terms with the fact that my father had never truly loved me, I fell apart. It hurt in an inexplicable way to know that the father who had taught me to see the good in the world couldn’t even see the good in me. You can’t replace a father’s love, can you? 

Acceptance

But I was wrong. 

Even if he can’t be replaced, his love could be. Poor Winnie — who had to put me back together. She loved me. That, I knew. 

And that was enough. 

And thus began a new chapter of my life, one––mostly––uncontrolled by my father. 

He passed away on the first of December, but I had already spent years mourning his death. The time for grieving had long passed. I stood by his gravestone in Newport Beach, Winnie and our daughter Rowan by my side, and I was stone-cold. I didn’t know the man in that grave. 

Rowan grabbed my hand.

“Mommy, are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

And that was enough.