During family reunions, my relatives always mention how much I look like my father. I inherited just about every attribute of Father except for skin color: the same thick eyebrows, the same dark brown eyes, the same deep voice. For all intents and purposes, I was my dad’s junior, his younger doppelganger, Daddy’s little boy. He clothed me in the same way he dressed, taught me to speak as articulately as he did.
I’m 24 years old, and half of my life was spent in a very unhealthy, emotionally draining obsession: to get out of my father’s shadow. I didn’t want to be the conduit to his frustrations and his ambitions. The loving, caring, decent, devoted family man that is my father took a back seat in my memories. It was nobody’s fault other than my own to remember my dad in such a different way.
It’s a kind of dreadful shame that I live the rest of my life for: to deserve being in my father’s shadow once again.
