This apple fell far from the tree...

I had this thought conjure up in me today while I was reading a book, the story took place in South Africa during the time of the apartheid. The language and writing style was very much emphatically based. I was reading about a father, who is walking in the house of his recently diseased son whom was killed by a young black teen. The father and his son whom are white have very different perspective on the blacks. His son was a champion in speaking out against the injustice of the blacks, while the father never really cared about the topic and he doesn't have much respect for the blacks, but he doesn't have anything against them neither.

The thought that came to me was the fact that no matter how a son might have grown, or have a new changed perspective, his father might refused to learn or accept his son's perspective. I think one reason is because of the role reversal. However, it might take the sudden death of the son which might trigger the yearning of the father to walk in his son's life, and grasp with the ideas the son believes. In this book, the son leaves his convictions behind as he was abruptly murdered. As the father grasps with the words, there are a certain quality to the thoughts (because of it's truth), there is a certain emotion (because it was his last words, as he never finished the sentence), and also because this was a perspective the father never care to ponder much about (so there is this side of his son that he never got to know).

While I was reading, the author left the impression of the sadness of the community and the father and mother over the abrupt death of the son. The thought were, of all white people, why would the blacks kill a white man that champions their cause. The sadness of the inability of his son to live out his convictions. Yet as I read this, I felt... if I was in the middle of something where I had a life conviction of, and my life ended in the midst of that. That would be quite amazing! The fact that my life, is occupied by tasks that I fundamentally am incline to, and am convicted about. What more can a man ask for? In fact, I had never had a good answer of how I wanted to go... i often cop out and say 'in my sleep', well, i think now i have a new answer. Doing something I have a conviction for... in my tombstone, i want it to say, he died serving the cause to better humanity. Wouldn't that be amazing?

Anyway, that was one point, the other is this. The fact that it took the death of a son for the father to mourn, ask questions, before beginning to understanding his son's point of view. How difficult is it to truly communicate to a father? One that is close minded and stubborn? Is it possible that there is no solution unless something truly catastrophic that shakes him to the core of his foundation? I'm at a complete lost at the moment. I'm not saying I'm not close minded, stubborn, or even impatient. But right now, I feel it might be impossible to really connect with my father.... truly I say, to connect at more than an intellectual level, and more then just a emotional level, but a conversation that allows for true self reflection might never be possible. And as I read this book, the insight of the author, and the circumstances laid out in the book made me ask questions which had no answers, except that I feel so much of what the son is writing.... and now read by the father.