My Dad is There for Me
On this week of Father's Day, I tell the story of how my dad made is possible for me to write my book.
Six years ago I sat in my therapy appointment feeling helpless. “I don’t know how to be a good dad, Laura, but I want to be. Can you help me get started?” I asked my therapist. I had given away many precious years of my kid’s lives to my career in tech and escapism through addiction to drugs, alcohol, and sex. I just hadn’t been around. Overall, I was a bad dad and a bad husband.
I was learning the impact of trauma. The trauma of me not “being there” had caused my kids to not respect me and trust me like I had always hoped they would be when they were teens. I was ready to be the dad that they needed me to be so that I could earn their respect and trust back. I was doing all I could to catch up on lost time and to change. I hoped it wasn’t too late.
“Just put some time on the calendar once a month with each of your kids and just spend time with them,” Laura said. “Please don’t go overboard on this. Once a month. No more. Promise me,” she said. “I promise,” I said. I went home and scheduled a weekly hangout with each of my four sons.
As the weeks turned into months, I realized that therapy wasn’t the only place to learn how to be a good dad. I began to remember the experiences of my childhood to understand my patterns. Yes, I saw my trauma. I had it just like everyone else, but I also began to see the beauty of what “being there” and “showing up” really meant as I replayed the hundreds of memories of the times that my dad had been there for me in my life.
When I was 10 years old, my family moved from Phoenix to Orem, Utah. It was a hard transition for me. I didn’t make friends quickly and I felt alone at times. That was ok, though. My dad was my friend. Each Friday night, my dad would borrow the key to the local church from the bishop so my brothers and I could ride our bikes through the halls of the church and play basketball in the church’s gym.
My dad took me to football and basketball games. He attended most of my sporting events. When I was 15, he was there for me when I was worried about what I was going to do for a living when I grew up. “You’ll figure that out later. Just enjoy your youth,” he said. He was right.
When I was 18, I lost my grip on life during a major existential crisis when a close friend of mine fell into a deep depression. I began having panic attacks daily. I asked my parents to get me therapy, which they provided. One day during this difficult phase, I was feeling especially alone when the phone at my parents house rang. It was my dad. He was out of town. “Hey, Daron. I’m just calling to see if you’re ok. Are you ok?” He said. My life was crashing around me and there he was, there for me once again when I really needed him. I knew that I was loved, and that seemed to make everything better.
Thirteen years ago, at the age of two, my son Tyler, who was born with special needs, was barely learning to walk. It was Halloween. He was independent and demanded to walk from door to door to trick or treat like his three older brothers. His prize was a warm donut that he got from a house in my parent’s neighborhood. As he walked back to my parent’s house with the donut on a paper plate, he fell on the pavement so many times. By the time he turned the knob to the front door of my parents house, tears were streaming down his face and his knees were skinned. The second he walked in the door, my dad reached down, took Tyler’s prize donut off the paper plate and took a huge bite out of it. Tyler was defeated. His tears of sadness triggered something primal in me.
My dad didn’t know that Tyler had been on a mission to get that donut, or what he had to go through to get it, or that his journey back to his grandparent’s house was symbolic of how much harder his life would be because of his special needs, but when my dad took that bite, all of my pain rose to the surface and I took it out on my dad. I verbally unleashed on my dad with anger. Soon, we were arguing about money. I stormed out of the house and went to the ATM and returned to my parents house, which was dark when I returned.
I opened the front door and threw the $600 in 20’s into the entryway of my parent’s house. “Here’s the money that I owe you!” I yelled through the dark house in anger. I didn’t know if anyone was home, but as I was shutting the front door to leave, I heard my dad open his bedroom door. “Daron? Is that you?” My dad called from upstairs. He came down the stairs, turned on the light and stood in front of me.
I continued my rage-filled rant. As I yelled at my dad, letting him know how much he had hurt me, he got on his knees with the thirty 20-dollar bills surrounding him and pleaded with me to forgive him. I broke. His kindness snapped me out of my rage. I began crying.
“I’m sorry, dad. Everything in my life is so hard right now.” He stood up and just hugged me. He validated what it must be like for me to have a child with special needs. He was there for me. I knew I was loved, and I could keep going.
Seven years ago, it broke my parents hearts when I told them that I was no longer a follower of the Mormon church. I had always wondered how my parents would react when they knew that I no longer believed they way they did. I didn’t have a conversation with my dad in the months after I sent him an email letting him know. My mom told me that he was devastated by my decision and that he needed time.
Later that year on Christmas, my dad offered to drive me to the airport to catch a flight for a business trip. It would be the first time that I would be alone with him since I let him know that I no longer believed in Mormonism. I was so nervous about being confronted. I didn’t want my beliefs to hurt my relationship with any of my family. Believing that he would talk to me about my departure from Mormonism, I took a dozen or so puffs on my THC vape device before I walked out to the car where he was waiting for me. I was blazed out of my mind to say the least.
I had smoked so much weed that I couldn’t connect two thoughts together. There would be no way for me to explain why I had decided to leave Mormonism because of how high I was, I realized as we began the drive to the airport. Then it hit me as the drive went along - He was just present and in the moment. He didn’t want to talk about my decision to leave the Mormon church. He just wanted to do something nice for me.
The emotion of the moment - an overwhelming feeling of being loved and cared for - overcame me. I turned my head to my passenger window so my dad wouldn’t see the tears streaming down my face. He accepted me and my beliefs. I knew that he loved me. “My dad is just there for me, always,” I said to myself.
Two and a half years ago I decided to leave my career in tech to write a book. My wife, Krystal, and three of my kids joined me as we moved from southern California to Provo, Utah, to live in my parents house. My mom and dad lovingly opened their doors to their home to us.
Writing a book took much longer than I expected. As months turned into more months and one year turned into two, I hoped my dad wouldn’t give up on me. I was terrified that he would ask us to leave his home before the writing process was completed, but he didn’t. He did the opposite. He increased his hours as an Uber driver. He worked six days a week, most days for 12 hours a day. He and my mom bought groceries for us each week and did their best to make us feel welcome. This sacrifice for me and my small family made enough money for us to stay living in my parents home until I was done writing my book.
The time in my parents house was a time of cocooning. It took a couple of years to write my story about how I did a life reset to have the relationships and life that I wanted to have. I overcame my addictions. I learned to set boundaries. I overcame my guilt and shame that had lived with me for years for doing things that didn’t align with who I was inside.
At the start of the book-writing process, I believed that it would be a beautiful story or a horrible tragedy. I did everything that I could to change so that I could be “there” for my kids the way that my dad was for me. As the months turned into a couple of years, I could see that there was a beautiful thing happening in my life and in the lives of each individual in our family. Things began to start to fit together.
Krystal and I began to have heart to heart conversations that needed to happen as we went on a drive together each morning in the 2002 Buick LeSabre that my dad let us borrow. We named the old car “Lil’ Assy.” Each morning in Lil’ Assy, I was able to hear Krystal speak of the hardest times in our marriage and validate her. She began to open more to me and I began to open more to her. She began to see that I was becoming the man that had always wanted to be. Our love returned.
While living in my parent’s house I got a second chance to be the dad that my kids deserved. I never missed a weekly hang out with my kids. I even convinced my oldest adult son to hang out with me by buying his vapes for him. My relationships with my kids are beautiful now.
I’m a good husband and dad now because of my dad. He showed me what “being there” was, even though he didn’t agree with me or believe the same as me. He didn’t let these conflicts in beliefs get in the way of his love for me.
This Father’s Day and every Father’s Day, I honor my dad who is always there for me.
Who was there for you as you learned to write? Who inspired you? Who sacrificed for you so that you could write a book. I would love to read your experiences in the comments.
To read the first chapter of my book, Mornings in Lil’ Assy, click below: