I wish I knew my father, because I have a lot of unanswered questions.

Starting from the time I was seven. What you look like? What you sound like?

I wish I had a Time Machine to get those answers that would have helped me get to seventeen….

Don’t really care if we resemble each other, but would have been nice to have a role model love my mother.

But don’t even bother cause by 27 I was a heart breaker, handsome short king with a sting, stacking paper taller than my dome on my head.

Are you alive or are you dead? by now I really dont need ya dad

At 37 I felt it all…..glad and sad feelings of that piercing pain of losing loved ones in one decade that prompts different questions.

By this point I was rigid, and secretly angry at alll this death around me…..

But I love life!!!!

I wonder my dear papa how you did it, when life got difficult, but also ponder my dear papa how you did it when you were at the top of the mountain sipping from marble fountains as your youth begins to to fade in the memory of your greatness and in the face of your failures.

I wish I knew my father cause today at 47, I’m a heart broken, fugly short king with a sting stacking bills taller than the dome on my head trying to catch that daily bread. I have so much to unlearn and let go • as death gets closer to my door … Doesn’t really matter anymore.

First and final question has always been why you leave me? We you scared or just didn’t care? Or were you kicked out? 86’d out of papas!!!

I made it without you, even though both our names are on my birth certificate, you could have been more original, and named Wolfgang or let my mother choose my first name, or let me have her last name since she was the one that raised me, as you erased me … but if you never left, we could’ve been grand …

Wish we were cool and that you had a phone I could’ve dialed to ask you to come to the hospital and meet your grandchild.

written by Güstavo Stebner

Los Angeles, California - September 24, 2024