By Mabry Culp
Business Manager
A year ago if you asked me what my priorities were, I would answer with a blank stare and an obvious tone “Twitter followers and my hair care products”. A year ago if you asked me who the most important person in my life was, I would answer Damon Salvatore from the show Vampire Diaries. A year ago, my father unexpectedly passed away after his long battle with drug addiction, and my priorities forever changed.
October 21, 2012 I came downstairs prepared for a normal morning. Desperate Housewives, a little Twitter scrolling and the looming pressure of homework all consumed my mind. Everything in my realm was normal. As my mother broke the news, she held my hand and told me that life was about to change. Her voice trembled, and through the tears she delivered the story of his death. I did not cry. I simply sat, and began to feel as if I was suffocating.
Dad and I never had a normal relationship by any standard. Struggling with addiction the majority of my 17 years, I could never quite grasp the concept of a man picking drugs over his daughter, let alone his family. Bitterness bred in my heart after all the missed recitals, father-daughter dances, dating issues, and life’s important questions were answered with an empty seat marked Dad. In place of him was a consuming monster of disappointment. He ignored me, so as I got older, I ignored him right back. Subconsciously, I developed a wall to the important things in life because quite frankly it was just easier to worry more about my hair than it was to wonder about my father loving me.
I figured I would always have the opportunity to make up with him. The way I saw it, I would turn 25, we would have a pow-wow, and all our problems would be solved. After this opportunity was yanked from me, I stared in the face of guilt and wallowed in the heavy “what if’s” that come along with grief. I have never experienced greater pain than I did in those few months, but the pain I went through turned in to the most rewarding wisdom.
As I poured over the last memories I collected with my Dad, I was able to really examine the condition of my heart. It was so easy for me to live immersed in the minute activities of every day, using them as sound mufflers to the noises of life. But this situation ripped off my muffs and exposed the world for what it was, and I could no longer even pretend that the little tasks were relevant. Suddenly the bigger question at hand was not how frizzy my hair looked, but did my little brother know I loved him? Did my friends know how much they meant? Did my mother know how highly I thought of her? The answer was enough to send sharp chills of realization through me. The cliché that love is the only thing standing at the end of the day could not ring louder with the truth, and now I know why it is a cliché.
The beat of my drum is no longer shallow distractions, but the deep satisfying tune of love. Each Tuesday of a new month you can find me at a booth in Steak N’ Shake having fries with my little brother talking life. Things like this are what makes life worth living to me. Grades are important, and every day tasks have their place, but nothing is more important to me than showing those around me just how incredible they are. I suffered through a huge disconnect with my father. I never showed him love, and now I am left in his wake wondering. Though this truth is cold and hard, it has set me up in a wonderful place. The way I see it, my father left this world with a challenge to me: life is short, don’t live it wrapped up in the condition of your hair, but the condition of your heart.
