I Was a Disappointment to My Father

No, really. I know it for a fact.

Here’s the background: my mother and father had relationships and children before they met, married and had me. I’m an only child -- with a handful of half-siblings. My father was probably pinning on me all of his hopes for the perfect son. Well, sorry.

I was a late baby (ten months, my mother always said), then sickly from the start (allergies and asthma). I couldn’t breast feed (milk allergy) so she fed me Jell-O water. I had a lot of food restrictions even back then -- many of which I carry with me today.

So, I was sickly, I missed a lot of school, I couldn’t play outside or in the grass. Do you sense where this is going? I was not athletically inclined -- at all. I preferred to stay inside and read.

You wanna know what’s worse? As I grew older, I got into theater and then when I was 20 and living in San Francisco, I -- horror -- realized I was gay. I think that was probably the final straw.

To his credit, my father never rode me for not being into sports or girls, for being the smartest kid in my class, for being a theater nerd. But he did drink -- to excess. I’ve always wondered whether those things were related.

As I grew older, I moved into a career in journalism -- both print and broadcast. I was published around the country, I started winning awards, my dad could pick up the afternoon paper and read something I wrote. But he was never noticeably proud of those achievements. No matter how successful I became, I think he would have been most happy if I could have just learned to throw a ball.