You can always come home.
If Mark Grayson forgives Nolan, I completely understand it.
Confession time: I really fucking love my Dad. After years of making him the villain in my story and pointing to him as the root of all my troubles, I have decided that there must be space for forgiveness in our relationship.
My dad left the first time when I was young. I wish I could say it was such a profound change that I remember the very date and time of his leaving - but the truth is, it wasn’t all that painful. I didn’t wake up one day to my Dad no longer in my life; the tethering of our relationship was gradual and came in successive stages. He moved to Ghana for work - that is not a crime. It’s annoying and tricky and comes with its issues, but moving to a different country for work does not make you evil. Non-Black parents relocate for work all the time - it puts strain on a relationship but distance doesn’t make you a deadbeat. The distance started to become an issue when the effort stopped. Fewer phone calls, fewer check-in texts, a diminished sense of connection - until communication finally ceased.
Then he came back. That’s a little bit funny, no? You successfully made it out of your family and freed yourself from parental and husband duties… and then you come back? My dad was never really gone for good - it was a very ‘one foot in’ kind of relationship. In hindsight, this was a weird kind of proof that he always wanted a relationship with his family. The one thing I can critique my father for is that conflict within his marriage was a deciding factor on how much he was willing to play the ‘Dad’ role. For that, I take grievance. But my father is not the first man to let his feelings for the mother of his children bleed into how he treats his kids - a sad but true reality for children from all walks of life.
So, my dad’s been in and out of my life growing up. Michaela Coel’s Chewing Gum has a line that perfectly encapsulates how I feel about my dad’s lack of presence in my younger years. After 2 seasons of the show, with not a single reference to her lack of a father figure, Coel’s protagonist Tracy finally has an on-screen interaction with her dad. Her character turns to the screen, breaking the fourth wall as she states, “No big story, he’s a nice guy. A little bit ‘what’s he there for?’ (…) but that’s it.” That’s how I felt. I always told people that if my dad wasn’t my dad, he’d be great - a fun uncle to hang out with and talk about Star Trek. Unfortunately, though, he was my dad, and the standard I had to hold him to was slightly higher than pints and good chat.
To put a long story short, my dad is back in my life because my parents are dating again. It has been my favourite line to drop when catching up with friends.
“Yeah. They were separated for 3 years but now they’re giving it a go again.”
There is so much to unpack about my parents’ relationship, and perhaps that is a note for another day, but my parents reconciliation has shown me something beautiful about the gift of growing up. As a child, the story that I told myself is that my dad left me. Woe is me; world’s tiniest violin. The truth of the matter is infinitely more complicated than that: it involves financial insecurity, family obligations, losing purpose, gaining purpose and the pursuit of love and happiness. I will never fault my dad for his humanity. He is a man with faults, and those faults affected the way that he treated his family, but he is sorry and he is trying. I can tell.
My dad is one of the only people in the world to squeal with joy when I walk through the door. When I ask him to buy me a can of tuna, he’ll buy 3 different multipacks in sunflower oil, brine and spring water - just in case I want to switch it up. When I tell him that I’m going to be a comedy writer, or a doctor or the prime minister, he tells me that there is no one on Earth more qualified than me. My dad is a cool fucking guy but it’s his first time being alive too, so of course he’s going to make some mistakes.
All relationships take work. As much as it’s his responsibility to make the effort to be in my life, it’s also my responsibility to welcome him back. My dad is not one of those men who believes that family is owed to him as his biological birthright - he is an anxious man who sometimes believes that we don’t even really want him around. Therefore, my job in these past few months has been to make my sentiments more explicit. So, to my father - and anyone else who thinks that time, distance or conflict means that we can’t have a relationship anymore, I write this:
You can always come home.
speaks to me on a level