He Was Gone

When he left, he was dead to me. He was my father, but he wasn’t my dad. I was twelve-years-old when my parents divorced, and I was twelve years old when the man who had failed to take care of me was finally vacated my life.

Every other Friday, my father would get paid, and on those Fridays, he would buy me ice cream. Blue-moo cookie dough. It was my favorite, and he knew it made me happy; he remembered. He also remembered every fight my mom started when he would bring the ice cream home. “Stop wasting your money!” she said, “She doesn’t need it”.

He was my favorite parent as a kid, and I can’t deny that. He bought me things; he bought my love. By the time I turned ten, I understood what he was. He was a failed father trying to steal his youngest child’s love to spite his wife, whom he no longer cared for. Loving him was hard because he was no longer around to buy it from me.

Then there was Robb Duddey.

When he left, he was dead to me. He wasn’t my father, but he was the closest thing I had. I was sixteen when my band director, Robb Duddey, resigned, and I was sixteen years old when the man who had taught me more about life than my father ever had, packed his bags and left the room that had previously belonged to my father.

Narnia was the name of the hallway connecting the choir and band rooms. A boy had broken my heart and I took refuge in Narnia. Duddey had heard me crying, and dropped his current task to comfort me. He talked me through my struggles, told me it wasn't my fault, and made me feel like I didn't need a boy in my life to be happy, but I knew that I needed him.

Halfway through our marching season, Duddey had missed five days in a row, which was extremely unlike him. The administration called the marching band down to the auditorium, and delivered the news as if he had died. We would never get to see him again, as far as we knew. He had taught me so much, and with the sending of an email, he was gone.

He was gone.

I have lost two important men in my life. One who was supposed to take care of me, and one who stepped up to the plate. My father is many things: an alcoholic, a high-school graduate, a failure. That is not who I want to be. I want to be like Robb Duddey. I want to go to college. I want to be successful. I want to love my job. Mr. Duddey taught us that you can love your job and still be successful. That's who I want to be. Even though he left, he left me with a desire to do something productive with my life, and that's something my father could have never done.