Charlie Pacheco

Severance

Overcast. Gray clouds lined the sky in the most solemn fashion, allowing the sun to pierce the sky for a brief moment before setting into its predictable sadness again. As I paused to collect my thoughts, they reminded me much of my father. He was a quiet man but his determination spoke louder than any single word could. His life was marred by circumstance, a product of war and of loss. My younger years were filled with stories of survival from the camp at Aushwitz and the pain of losing his family before its liberation. I remember listening and thinking they were always tales of caution, about how to survive against insurmountable odds. His translation was much simpler. “I’ve never had anything of value in my youth. What I’ve always valued was time. Time with my family. Time with myself. Time with my thoughts.” When my mother passed, his stories ended and his silence took over. Her loss was too much for him to bear, considering all that he had already lost during the war. His life afterwards was now focused on his exploring the world around him to find anything of worth, both for and possibly in himself. I had traveled thousands of miles, returning back to the hills that I had called home for much of my youth to collect his belongings. There wasn’t much to take: a compass, some old photos, his favorite hat, a sturdy wooden trunk and a dusty black leather bound notebook. He always believed that life’s experiences were best when written down so they could withstand the test of time. As I opened the book, I noticed that it was addressed to him from a man named Shmuel Eisen. It was a name that I did not recognize but it was perhaps a familiar face from the stories. Father often spoke about a friend he had made while he was in Aushwitz, a boy his age who shared his affinity for adventure. The inscription read “To Immanuel, may you find the peace you have been seeking and the means to make it bearable”. As I continued to carefully turn its old, tattered pages, I saw only one entry: 56 24 S followed by 3 24 E. Intrigued, I immediately knew that they were coordinates to a place unfamiliar to me. I gathered what I could and with his life savings of roughly $20,000 and made my way to the dock where we used to fish. It was a meager amount of money to some who have always had the means to spend freely but each dollar represented a hard days work in his eyes. As I sat reflecting on what could have been and trying to make sense of the inscription in the journal in front of me, I felt the cold welcome of rain tap my shoulder and in an instant it began to pour down relentlessly. It didn’t matter to me because the rain concealed my tears. It hid my pain. In my moment, I had failed to close the notebook, certain that I had just ruined one of the things that my father had seemingly held so dear to him when all of the sudden, the pages came to life. Somehow, they reacted to the rain and I began to see more inscriptions as I turned each page. Maps. Riddles. Clues of all varieties. As I reached the last page, my heart stopped. It’s final inscription read: To my son, I knew you would find this. I have lived my life with regret and loss. They changed who I was and made me angry. Angry with life. Angry with God. Angry with losing your mother...but never angry with you. You were my greatest creation. My greatest treasure. In my solitude, my only solace was in discovery and adventure, perhaps as a needed distraction from my constant worry. Each entry and place contained within these pages will lead you to discover who I truly was as a person. As your father. This is the journey to self discovery that I created and now it is a means for you to do the same. Find me and you’ll find yourself. I love you more than you will ever know.” A quiet crept over me as I muddled through all of these new emotions. I was broken. I was beaten. I was without purpose. As I stared at the coordinates, I decided then and there that would end. I now had my purpose. I would finish my father’s journey and in turn, find myself. The coordinates led to Bouvet Island and it was only the first of many adventures to come. I wonder what life has in store for me and with a deep breath I whispered to myself “Alright. Let’s see where this takes me....”