What Isn't Told To A Man Who Lost His Father

It came close to derailing me.

On March 5th, 2009, my father passed away after an 11-month battle with terminal cancer.

It was my 18th birthday.

On the first day of legal adulthood, my father passed away. At first, I was numb to the situation. For a few months, I had accepted the fact that he was going to pass away but I didn't know how to process it. The permanence of death was incomprehensible.

As I watched my father pass away peacefully in our family room, I didn't realize what I would be missing out on. Often we take our parents for granted and assume they will always be there. The impacts that have on us usually go unnoticed by the conscious mind and seep into our unconscious.

When you enter adulthood, the wisdom that your parents pass on to you is vital. I could have asked my mother for advice on some things and I did when I was in my late teens and early 20s but I had a different relationship with her.

My mother didn't go to college so the different trials and tribulations that you might experience at that age are different. She didn't have a lot of advice to offer me but she did her best.

At that stage of early adulthood, I was on my own. If I was going to make it through college, I had to figure things out myself. That first semester of college ended up kicking my butt. I dropped one class because I fell behind, and failed another class. Luckily I got A's in my other two classes that were fairly easy but that wasn't going to be acceptable. I had to figure something out.

My college offered thirty free therapy sessions to all students and I took advantage of it. I was paired up with a kind therapist who listened to every word that I had to say.

At one point in school, I thought she had saved my life. I would have been a train wreck acting out character and latching onto the first male role model that I could.

When you lose a father figure, it's easy to get lost. It wasn't that my father was a man who forced me to do anything but he supported in me in whatever I chose to do.

The key part of that support was holding me accountable for what I chose to do. He would never allow me to be flaky in any of the life decisions that had consequences. There were many things in my life that I didn't enjoy at started but stuck with it because I felt accountable to him.

Without him there, I became flaky. I tried student government and then decided I didn't want to do it. I tried to join a fraternity and then decided I didn't want to do it.

I made excuses with all of them, of course, but the truth is, I could have made it work if I tried.

Then I took an acting class Frank, who was a tough professor. He would criticize you in every way possible from the looks on your face to the way you stand. Some students couldn't take it but it was a part of learning the craft of acting. I ended up enjoying it.

I felt accountable to Frank to give it my best. It wasn't out of fear of failing the class but knowing that I did my best and showing him my best.

For a while, I lost that feeling of accountability. Nothing in the world seemed like it mattered but with Frank, it felt like it did. My performance mattered even though only he and the class would see it.

Later that year, I auditioned for a play at the school and got a small role. Eventually, that led me to the lead role in a couple of years.

I needed something difficult and someone to hold me accountable for it. I'm grateful that it accidentally happened to me because who knows where I would have been without it.

One thing you'll realize as you get older is that you're often on your own. There are not many people out there who will hold you accountable for doing anything because they love you. Most accountability is held out of fear of negative consequences. It's not because someone cares deeply about your growth as a person. That's the difference in the accountability held by a father or a father figure.

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