Just Do Your Best

Has it been six and a half years already? I just can’t believe it, feels like only yesterday that I received news that would rock me to my very core. On November 14th, 2002 my Father passed away and I never got to say goodbye. He was gone forever.

As all of the thoughts that fill an entire lifetime came flooding into my head all I could really focus on was the fact that all of the things I had ever hoped to say to him would have to remain in my head, just thoughts. All the woulda coulda shouldas add up to a terrible regret that weighs just as heavy on my heart to this day as they did the night I received the call.

Growing up my Dad was a very ‘hardcore’ guy, a ‘perfectionist’ to say the least. Well that’s how it appeared to me anyway because I felt that no matter how hard I tried, my accomplishments, whether big or small were never good enough. My own pride wouldn’t allow me to do anything less than my best but somehow my best just wasn’t ever good enough for him. At least that’s how it came across as a kid growing up and searching for Dads ‘approval’. To this day I can’t ever remember him saying “Good job son, I’m proud of you” or heaven forbid “Son, I love you”. Yet time and again I tried my hardest to get his approval, thinking that somehow THIS might be the one time. Of course, it never came. He was a firm believer in ‘tough love’.

I began riding motorcycles at about 5 or 6 years old and started racing Motocross at about 7 or 8. My Dad also started racing about the same time. It was awesome, we finally had a common ‘bond’ and an interest that we were both passionate about. It also meant that we would be spending time together just about every weekend. My Mom was uncomfortable watching us race, feeling it was too dangerous so she never really went with us. She was right. I can still remember standing there by the ‘Big Jump’ at our local track as a good friend of mines Father was racing by and ‘flipped’ his bike over backwards, which seemed to me to be in ‘slow motion’ and at such a slow speed, how could he be hurt but yet it left him paralyzed from the waist down. I was too young to really understand the full impact of that at the time. What a terrible shame.

So my Dad and I continued racing just about every Sunday. I can still remember walking up to pick up my Trophies after my name was announced, thinking this might be the time I hear a “Good job son, I’m proud of you” but of course it never came. Always more along the lines of “if you would have just kept the gas on longer into turn three, you could have probably lapped another guy”. Again, never good enough.

My parents divorced when I was 14, my sister went to live with my Mom and I continued to live with my Dad. He and I continued racing and by this time he was General Manager of a large motorcycle Dealership in So. Cal. and racing had become a big part of our lives. The Head Mechanic at the Dealership had a son that was two years older than I was and we became really good friends. We went to the same High School, in fact our H.S. had a Motocross ‘Team’. We would tune our bikes all week long after school in anticipation of racing on Sunday. As time went by my buddy wanted to get more into desert racing, which I didn’t much care for. We’d still tune our bikes together all week but some weekends he and his Dad would race in the desert while my Dad and I would head to the MX track.

Then my buddy got the ‘itch’ to race the Baja 500, at the time one of the biggest desert races in the world. I’m not even sure they were racing the Baja 1000 at that time. I’ll never forget thinking how lucky he was because he got to take a few days off school that week because the race was on a friday and he needed to go down to Mexico early and get prepped for it. He was an incredibly talented rider and I knew he would do great, even though it was his first time in the race.

The phone call came that friday night, he was dead! My best friend was killed while leading the Baja 500. He was only sixteen and to think of all he could have accomplished breaks my heart to this day. His father took it very hard, feeling as if it was his fault for allowing his son to be in that race. I didn’t know it at the time but as I look back, I think he had a nervous breakdown. I don’t think he was ever the same after that. I was only fourteen at the time and it was really the first funeral I can remember attending. Seemed like our entire school was there. He was a very special person, incredibly smart, outgoing and loved by all. Oh how I wish he would have just gone to school that week because I still miss him terribly to this day.

After that, the ‘magic’ of racing had lost it’s luster and it kind of broke the ‘bond’ that my Dad and I had shared. My Dad gravitated more towards building Street Rods and I started hanging out more with my friends, going to the beach and doing other things. My Dad and I gradually grew apart and we never really shared that same ‘connection’ ever again.

Hard to believe it now but I was actually kind of smart as a kid, I skipped a grade and so I graduated from High School at sixteen. Of course, as we all know at sixteen I pretty much knew everything I was ever going to know and so I wanted to move out on my own. Yet I really wasn’t old enough to legally ‘leave’ and since I was working at the time I rented a room from my Boss who was my girlfriends Brother in Law. At this point my friends and I were spending all of our ‘free time’ at the beach and so when I turned eighteen I moved to San Diego with three friends and that was more or less the last time I saw my Dad. Oh, I saw him a couple times through the years. Once was at my Grandfathers funeral and things of that nature but never for ‘good times’. By this point he had a ‘second’ family and my sister and I were just memories, a part of his past.

As the years went by I had wanted to contact him but I always felt that ‘wherever’ I was in my life at the time, I wasn’t doing well enough for him to be proud of me and so I continued to postpone things until I was doing better. Better job, more money, that kind of thing.

As I got older I began to lose track of why we didn’t speak to each other anymore and I really wanted to get up the courage to call him, just to say “Hi” and “Let’s have lunch sometime”. Yet I never did. “Oh, there’s always next month and I’ll be doing better by then anyway” but of course that never happened. I could never muster up the courage to face him.

Then the call came, he was gone. Everything I had ever wanted to say to him came flooding back to me in a wave of despair that I can’t even begin to describe. Oh, people tell me that the phone works both ways and that he could have contacted me just as easily as I could him. Yes that’s true but knowing in my heart that he was even more stubborn than I am and that he would never make the first move, it really doesn’t make me feel any less guilty. I should have been the ‘bigger’ person and extended the ‘olive branch’ to him because as I sit here now writing this ‘novel’, I’m truly the one that lost out by not making the effort to contact him first.

All of those years spent searching for his praise and approval had kept me from swallowing my pride and making that phone call. Oh, how I regret that now. Especially when I find out from my Mom that he used to tell everyone else how proud he was of me, yet he couldn’t bring himself to tell me to my face. Apparently he felt I would stop trying so hard if I thought I already did a ‘good enough’ job on something. He obviously didn’t understand that I’ve been driven by my pride my entire life and I don’t know any other way than to do my very best, at everything I do.

It’s so unfortunate that we were unable to communicate all those years. Communication is so important, in every type of relationship. Be it family, friends or in love, communication is everything. I never got to know my Father as an adult and it absolutely breaks my heart to this day. Yet I know I should get over it and ‘move on’ because there’s nothing I can do about it now but the regret still cuts so deeply into my heart that it’s hard not to blame myself for all those years I missed out on. Who knows, there’s no guarantee that if I did make the effort to contact him how or even if he would have responded but the fact that I didn’t try is what tears me apart inside.

The point of this ‘novel’ isn’t to sit around and cry about what could have been. It’s to hopefully get the message out to others that could be in this very situation. Life is short, please don’t make the same mistakes I did. I will have to live with my regret forever but you don’t have to. Don’t let your ego or your pride keep you from contacting someone you care about. Take it from me, the regret can be unbearable at times and no one should have to go through this. And once it’s too late, it’s too late. There are no second chances.

Be the bigger person, make the effort and who knows what could happen. It could turn out fantastic but even if it doesn’t, at least you can say you tried and you will know deep down inside that you did your best. That’s all they would ever want from you, just do your best.

Tags: Family, Life, Relationships