The ever-absent God

“It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”



Richard was the eldest of three brothers. He was born in the 1950s, in a time where both of his parents believed they could build a happy home together –even his mother, who wouldn’t take long to give up. Richard’s father was a fervent Catholic. He was tall, strong, with a thick black beard, and above all, instructed. He had read all kinds of books and he was an expert in education. He proudly displayed all of his academic degrees in his home office, a place where the boys were not allowed to enter when he was away. And, as a matter of fact, he was away from home most of the time. His job as an academic had him traveling abroad several months a year, and Richard grew up to be a lonely child in a huge house. Sonya, his mother, was busy taking care of an aging grandmother, his two younger brothers had each other, but Richard lacked his father. “Whenever I’m not at home, my son, you just pray for me” Oscar would say, “God takes good care of all of us. And remember that, in the meantime, you are the man of the house.”

Richard was seven by the time his ancient grandmother died in a fire. It was a stupid domestic accident, and Richard’s mother managed to get him and his two other boys out of the house, but the older woman couldn’t move by her own means and got trapped in flames. Oscar was away in another part of the country at that time. It took two days to contact him and three other days for him to come home to a devastated wife who spent the rest of her life feeling guilty of abandoning her mother and trying to drink her pain away. Sonya would never be the same.

But Oscar remained as calm as possible. “Nothing happens out of God’s will”, he explained to his children. And Richard believed him. He had to. He began attending church every Sunday as his mother couldn’t be left on her own, and his father was again on the road. Richard found some comfort in the words of the priest, and mostly, he enjoyed the religious songs. For his tenth birthday, he asked for a guitar, and he taught himself to play it. While both of his brothers were into sports, he spent most of his hours listening to long plays from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. That didn’t last though: Oscar didn’t like the lyrics of certain songs, and he banned that kind of music in his house. Even if he was away, Richard considered himself responsible: hadn’t his father left him in charge? Wasn’t he the man of the house in his absence after all? 

So Richard decided that joining the church choir was the only way for him to keep playing music. Any kind of music would do. If his father –his huge, strong, powerful, black-bearded, absent father- was happier with religious hymns than rock songs, then that would have to do. At church, he finally met some friends near his age. He wasn’t very talkative, as all he enjoyed doing was playing music and reading. Besides, the few times he had brought home a classmate from school, he had felt ashamed of his mother, always lying in front of the black and white TV, locked inside her own mind, with an empty glass by her side. And if his father happened to be around, it was even worse: any talk about politics, religion, sex, or even an allusion he could overhear, would light the sparkle. Later, he exploded: Oscar would not tolerate dirty hippies, communists, atheists, or any other kind of indecent folks in his house. “I forbid you to see this boy ever again, you hear me, son? It’s for your own good. I’m only taking care of you.”

Like God, his father took care of him, of all of them. Yet, he was rarely around. Again, like God. But Richard trusted him. He trusted them both. And he kept going to church, playing his guitar, and singing religious hymns to express who knows what kind of faith he pretended to hold on to.

Until one day, it seemed everything finally paid off. It was when Richard was twenty-three that he met Kate, a girl that had recently moved to his town and attended his same church. This girl was twenty, with lovely hazel eyes, and a beautiful voice. She soon joined the choir and that gave Richard plenty of opportunities to be around her. When he eventually asked her out, the first thing he did was to bring her home to get his father's approval. And he got it: she was a nice girl, she was Catholic as well, and she was willing to get married and have a family. It took Richard less than three months to propose. And she said yes.

As the priest got them married, Richard felt happier than he could remember. He saw a proud smile on Oscar, and Sonya’s eyes were wet with happy tears. He didn’t stop to consider whether he truly loved Kate, or if they had anything in common more than their strong faith in a powerful God above. But Richard felt nothing could go wrong: God himself was the guarantee that their marriage was supposed to work out. It was a blessed union, a match made in Heaven -literally speaking. Besides, their parents were happy, and soon their pure love was going to be rewarded with their firstborn, a healthy girl, who –Richard thought- would grow up cheerful in a village near the mountains, where he got a great job offer shortly after the birth. Kate agreed to move, although that meant she had to give up her college studies and leave her parents behind. But God intended for a woman to follow his husband, and she meant to be a devoted wife. The three of them –Richard, Kate, and the baby girl-, moved within a year. Richard felt a little guilty of leaving his sick mother behind, but his father was already retired, thus he didn’t travel as much, and he could occupy his rightful place as the man of the house. It was God’s will. And Richard trusted God more than he did his own judgment.

The marriage didn’t work out though. Far away from their friends and family, Richard and Kate found out they had little in common. Richard started working more than sixteen hours a day, even on weekends, because it was the only thing that kept his mind busy. He no longer played any music, and the only thing his wife and him did together was attending church on Sundays. Kate felt lonely, a young girl with a baby, no friends or parents around to help her out. She was deeply unhappy. So was Richard, but he kept clinging to his faith: God intended it this way, He had a plan, and who were they to question it?

Richard and Kate had three more kids, one after the other. While he had never wanted a big family, Kate’s faith kept her from using contraceptive methods. He blamed her for that. Especially when the youngest, a little boy, was born several weeks before time. He nearly died but survived with a huge disability. That was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Kate couldn’t take it anymore, and so she moved back with all their four children to her parents’ home. Richard managed to get himself fired from his dream job shortly ever after but he didn't mind following them back to his hometown. Quite the opposite, he got relocated to an even more distant city. Every month, he sent a paycheck to Kate and the kids and managed to visit them once or twice a year. He didn’t think his children would miss him: after all, he had also grown with an absent father, and there was nothing wrong with that, right? God would take care of them. It was all part of God’s plan.

And then Oscar died. Richard and his two brothers, who hadn’t spoken to each other in years, had to make arrangements to put old Sonya in a home. By that time, Kate had already pleaded for divorce because she wanted to remarry. And when Richard tried to pray, he discovered he no longer remembered how to do it. He went to the church where he used to play the guitar –which he hadn’t done in years-, and he found it a sad, empty building. He tried to read the Scriptures and found the book as if the pages were blank. The priest didn’t recognize him, prematurely aging and balding, and spoke in empty words. And Richard faced the truth: God had left him. If there had ever been such a God! 

“God doesn’t exist”, he says now, thirty years later, every now and then, when he talks on the phone with his eldest daughter, whose kids he has seen once in their lifetime. "And if he did, then he’s a miserable old man who enjoys seeing us suffering, and causing us all kinds of pain.” And though he calls himself an atheist, in his head though, Richard still pictures God as tall, strong, black-bearded, and absent.