First, we have to agree on our perception of a god, just for the story I want to tell you. It’s important we sort this out now. My uncle once told me, “A man is the closest thing to a God,” and those words have stuck with me since. He is like my father in that he did not know his father growing up, and he is like my father in his fervent belief in the power of fathers over anything. I added the “a” to his quote myself, because it makes much more sense to me that way.

So, perhaps you know this story. In Greek Mythology there was first Uranus and Gaia, who ruled over everything. They had their children, the Titans, and Uranus hid them under the earth until his son, Cronos, castrated his father and took his place as king. Then Cronos received a prophecy that one day his son would overthrow him, and Cronos swallowed all his children until his wife hid the last one away, Zeus. Eventually, Zeus cut his siblings out of his father’s stomach, and after a long war Zeus overthrew his father and caged him in Tartarus forever. I like this story because of how circular it feels. Not a single lesson was learned. And of the many myths about the Greek gods, few of them involve them acting kindly towards each other. When we think about how nearly all of them come from this family, it makes sense why.

A year ago my grandmother died. I only know because my mother was told through members of my father’s family. I harangued over calling my father’s side of the family for weeks, but I was afraid contact with them would end up coming back to my father. To be honest, I’m even more ashamed that I could fit all I know about her in this paragraph. She raised my father, uncles, and aunts by herself. We met once when I was eight, and despite the language barrier she felt warm and kind. And in her last few years she estranged herself from even my father’s side of the family because she defended my father so much. My mother and I weren’t close to her because she defended my father so much. And I only realize now that I thought about her more as an extension of him then as her own person.

Gaia was the earth. She had to hide her children under her, and give Cronos the sickle that’d fell her husband. Rhea had to raise Zeus in a cave. And when the prophecy came for Zeus, he didn’t wait for his wife to give birth to their son. While she was pregnant, he simply swallowed her whole. I wrote a poem years ago, where my father was Cronos and I was one of the children he ate, cutting myself out of his stomach every night to be eaten again in the morning. In that poem, I said this:

“When we do it again tomorrow, I can focus

on something else; how I can still see the moon

from his own eyes, where my brother is

in the dark of his stomach, or

how I’ll eat my own son.”

I would like to think I wouldn’t eat my own son. That unlike Zeus, I could break the cycle. That unlike my mother or grandmother, or Gaia or Rhea, my wife wouldn’t have to suffer because of my history. And one day I will have the whole story of my father’s side to tell you. Like a myth, perhaps it’ll explain everything I don’t understand yet. Once I’ve sifted through it all, I will have the whole story neatly placed, like torn pieces of paper put back together, and it will free me of all the power they hold over me, all the doubts they stir in my heart. But until then, I fear I can’t help but prove my uncle right. I don’t think a god can exist if you don’t believe in their power.