My dad’s mask was the loudest when it fell. “Spiritual Man” was written on his mask, for that was what he wanted it to say. “Compassionate Father” was written on his mask, for that was what he wanted me to see. So on the day it finally slipped from his face, I recoiled. As it crashed to his feet it shattered into a million pieces. As it came unglued, each icy shard pierced my heart.  The ground trembled with a thunder that knocked me onto my back so that I was staring into a cloud filled sky.  Its crash numbed my hearing and I looked through watering eyes at a landscape I had been walking in but only now could see.  So it wasn’t just my mom.  I now saw him too, really SAW him, crouching down behind a spiritual quote.  I saw him, a man who once stood straight and tall, now hunched and limping.  Beat down over the years.

I always focused on my mom’s words because they were barbed. But my dad’s words are like a rose. They pull you in because they look so lovely, but they have thorns just the same. They paint a beautiful picture but it is a tapestry of fog and lies. “You have a supportive family,” he said. “I would never ignore anything important to you.” Lovely words, but they are lies.

A supportive family doesn’t run away when one of its members suggests healing. A loving father doesn’t ignore his daughter’s pleas.

He isn’t who I thought he was. The man I thought he was would be so disappointed in the man that he is. The man I thought he was would never need a mask. The man I thought he was isn’t real. It breaks my heart to see my dad for what he really is – all smoke and mirrors.