My Dad Would Be Proud

On Pride, Pain, and Forgiveness

When I started writing this blog, I had no specific outcomes in mind, but I did have clear values guiding me. Everything would be off-the-cuff; raw thoughts, feelings, and emotions captured authentically in the moment. Yes, I edit my posts, but most emerge late at night through my Notion mobile app or early mornings from the couch with my dog sleeping beside me. There’s something liberating about it: the less seriously I take it, the more meaningful it becomes. Not meaningful in a professional or monetary sense, but meaningful because it’s a genuine reflection of who I am and the life I’m actively curating for myself, a life built around authenticity, creativity, and pursuing what truly lights me up. It’s meaningful because I’m proud of myself for honoring what feels true, proud of writing openly, and proud of following the path that fulfills me deeply. This piece came to me over the past few weeks, and I felt compelled to write it down.

Recently, a close friend sent me a text: “I see you and what you’re doing, and I want you to know I’m so proud.” Despite the distance and the digital nature of our exchange, the emotional impact was overwhelming. It was late at night, and we were deep into one of our conversations, reconnecting after nearly two weeks, which lately has felt like an eternity for us. Her advocacy and support have always been steadfast, yet the timing felt genuinely aligned with an evolving emotion I’d been navigating: pride.

Throughout my life, my relationship with my father was complex and often strained. I was a child trying to understand my world, and he was an adult wrestling with the roles of parenting and personal demons. The primary tensions stemmed from his up and down relationship with my mother. My parents never shielded us from their struggles, not through healthy openness but from an inability to protect us from their raw realities of the fighting, financial instability, and alcoholism.

My father died from a substance abuse overdose when I was 22. I’ll never forget that moment. I was at a bar hosting a work event at my first job after college when my mom called. The moment I heard her voice, I knew what she would say. Although his struggle was prolonged, and I anticipated his eventual passing, the reality took nearly a decade to process fully.

My dad never seemed to fit neatly into this world. He refused conformity, passionately pursued his own path, and lived vividly through his creativity and vision. But he also grappled with the difficulties that come from feeling perpetually out of place, exacerbated by mental illness. Someone once told me certain souls find this world too harsh to bear, and I think that perfectly captures my father. He was too expansive, too intense, too deep for the confines of this world.

Over thirteen years have passed since his death, and I’ve lived so much of my life without him. The person I was then exists only in fragmented memories. I’ve grown into an entirely different human in countless ways, yet something remarkable continues to unfold: the longer he’s gone, the closer I feel to him. I recognize so much of him within myself; the joy for life, the laughter, the vision to create, the boundless desire to build, and an unwavering need to feel deeply. This past year, especially, I’ve felt fully aligned, and in my element. And amidst this alignment, I’ve felt something incredibly real and comforting, despite lacking tangible proof: I know my dad would be immensely proud of me.

I often find myself wishing for just one more minute with him — one minute to reconnect, to express everything left unsaid. I wish I could apologize for how things ended, for distancing myself during his final years, because witnessing his addiction unravel was unbearably painful. The grief was immobilizing, like a scream trapped within, forever unreleased.

Yet, despite the pain surrounding his death, I continuously choose to remember the vibrancy of how he lived. Deep within, I know he would be proud — those were the last words he ever spoke to me. And I responded in anger, telling him never to speak to me again. Tragically, we never did. He died before we reconciled. But over the years, I’ve learned to forgive myself and the version of me who uttered those harsh words. Ultimately, all paths lead back to him; to how I live, how I love, and the profound certainty that wherever he is, my father is immensely proud.