Jaden - Jake just shared your website with me and I can’t believe how SIMILAR of a situation I’ve been in meeting me biological dad for the first time as a freshman in high school and never having contact again. You brought me back to that exact moment from so many years ago.. You have a new fan in me!! Can’t wait to see you at the wedding!!
When I wrote following your interview with Matthew Green and Jacob Kishere I did not realise that you had met your father. Even if you felt it unsatisfactory - and he kept his sunglasses on, spoke of your half-sister and gave you a wallet - lacking any lucky money - as it should have contained when given as a gift. He probably did keep the glasses on to hide his eyes for fear of revealing emotion though it seems that you controlled your own - via some internal mechanism. I wonder if there will be another more honest attempt to grapple with what his absence from your first 24 years (and since) has really cost you - although I guess that that is the purpose of the book. And though it is a book which has application far beyond you personally - for all of us who in various ways have been deprived of our fathers - it is also for all those who have - again - for a variety of reasons - abandoned their children. You are teasing out all the threads - as I see it - for us all. I admire you.
Jaden - Jake just shared your website with me and I can’t believe how SIMILAR of a situation I’ve been in meeting me biological dad for the first time as a freshman in high school and never having contact again. You brought me back to that exact moment from so many years ago.. You have a new fan in me!! Can’t wait to see you at the wedding!!
-McKall
Jake Matykiewicz’s fiance
Wow, Jaden. This is...so many things. Thank you for sharing so openly and vulnerably. I can’t wait to read more 🙏
When I wrote following your interview with Matthew Green and Jacob Kishere I did not realise that you had met your father. Even if you felt it unsatisfactory - and he kept his sunglasses on, spoke of your half-sister and gave you a wallet - lacking any lucky money - as it should have contained when given as a gift. He probably did keep the glasses on to hide his eyes for fear of revealing emotion though it seems that you controlled your own - via some internal mechanism. I wonder if there will be another more honest attempt to grapple with what his absence from your first 24 years (and since) has really cost you - although I guess that that is the purpose of the book. And though it is a book which has application far beyond you personally - for all of us who in various ways have been deprived of our fathers - it is also for all those who have - again - for a variety of reasons - abandoned their children. You are teasing out all the threads - as I see it - for us all. I admire you.