Below is an email sent to me from a son who had shared the film with his dad. After viewing it, this is what his father wrote to him. I hope you find this as touching and as meaningful as we did….
Dear son,
Just saw the video by Glazer. Mom had told me about it this afternoon. She watched it during the day, she was very impressed with it.
Upon viewing it tonight, I have so many mixed feelings.
First I feel ashamed about not being the father I should have been, I should have been more involved. I guess I was wrapped up with supporting the family, this was my responsibility, and I am ashamed that I did not spend enough time with the kids.
I was not the father I should have been. I think of times that I regret, not being more sensitive and understanding & loving.
I remember a time when I brought you to a ball park and started hitting ground balls to you, you seemed to be afraid of them and yet I continued to hit the ball to you and kept telling you to look at the ball, keep your eye on the ball that way if the ball changed direction you would know.
You know I had that fear in me and didn’t like it and I wanted you not to have it. So I kept on drilling you on ground balls, I remembered you started crying, I don’t remember anything after that.
Whatever happened let just say I’m so sorry for putting you through that practice. I was not very loving, I was not being a good father. I didn’t want you to be like me, I wanted you to be better than me.
Remember the time you wanted to go with me to buy a car, I told you no. I was afraid to let you down. I think you thought I was a great negotiator or maybe you just wanted to learn how to negotiate and you wanted to see how I did it, and how I was able to beat the salesman down on price.
I was afraid that I would fail, and I did not want to fail and be less in you eyes so therefore I did not want you to come along with me. I’m sorry.
Maybe you should have seen me, not as great as you thought, I didn’t know the outcome of the negotiations, would I live up to your expectations or would the salesman win out, and if so, would I come down in your eyes? I didn’t know, I was afraid, my pride got in the way.
Viewing that film made me think of many things, some things I lacked as a father, some things I felt good as a father.
I hope & pray that my influence on you, if any, did not hurt you.
Seeing that video made me realize, maybe I wasn’t the greatest, but I will tell you it made me realize also how much I loved you, and how much I wanted the very best for you. Maybe that was done very clumsily but bottom line, I wanted the very best for you.
With regrets but with much love,
Dad
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