Who do you need to forgive?
I need to forgive my father. I used to think my entire existence was dependant on him and what he thought of me. The worst thing about it was no one ever let me believe otherwise, not even my mother. It was always 'Jack, Don't let your father down' or 'Jack this is your fault' usually in response to one of his binges.
The last time I saw my father he was laying on a cold metal tablet in a Sydney Morgue. He ran away this time because his career was ruined; by what you might wonder? Me. I ruined my father's career, at least that's what he told me, it's what my mother told me.
You see he's a surgeon just like me, or maybe I'm just like him. I tried everything in my life to get him to be proud of me and nothing ever worked until finally I'd had enough. He drank a lot, my father, some times when he couldn't handle something in his life he'd disappear for weeks and then turn up again when he felt like it. I never understood how my mother justified being with him.
Once while I was working a nurse from the OR came to get me, she told me my father was working on a patient and his hands were shaking. So I went down to see how he was doing. I'll spare you the details but he screwed up, he cost the woman her life. Then he tried to convince me not to tell the board what had happened. I even remember what he said to convince me.
"I know I have been hard on you, but that is how you make a soft metal into steel. That is why you are the most gifted young surgeon in this city. And this, this is a career that is all about the greater good. I've had to sacrifice certain aspects of my relationship with you so that hundreds and thousands of patients will live because of your extraordinary skills. I know it's a long time coming. What happened yesterday, I promise you, will never happen again. And after all, what I've given. . . This is not just about my career, Jack. It's my life."
He managed to convince me, that is until we were at the hearing and I found out the woman had been pregnant and my father had known it before he started working on her. It may not have been the right thing to do, but it was the only thing I could do. I told them my father had been drinking that day and his negligence was a direct factor in the woman's death.
That was it, his career was over.
Maybe it seems like this is a story where I want the forgiveness. It's not, not really, I used to think I needed to be forgiven by my father. Maybe it's because now, because of Sawyer of all people, I know that my father did forgive me. Really though I think it's because he's dead and I think I might hate him as much as I love him. There are things about myself I hate, things that have been engrained in me since the day I was born.
I am my own man and I'm not trying to blame all my faults on my father. Christian Shephard was a cold man but he was just a man. I forgive him; I forgive him for dying before I got the chance to say goodbye.
