Fuck Em Poster
My Dad’s last words to me were: “Fuck Em”
He was at the end of a years long battle with brain cancer. In his final days he would sit, repeating “fuck em” over and over while staring at a blank wall. It was the last thing he ever said to me, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t an ominous scene to watch.
At first, my mind wandered to all the many possibilities of what he could be referring to…the government? Politicians?? THE MAN!? but upon more reflection, I realized there was a deeper message as there often was with my dad.
For context…one summer he decided to teach my sister and I how to fight (lol). He tried to keep it respectful while also attempting to pit us against each other, playfully jabbing at us and trying to get us all riled up. We ended up banding together against him, locking ourselves in my bedroom to get away from him. Our smug satisfied giggles quickly turned to some version of terror as he broke the door off the hinges and gently placed it on the wall while explaining that “doors could never keep him out”. It definitely wasn’t conventional parenting, but there was always a lesson waiting to be revealed to us.
So when he said “fuck em”, I knew he was trying to tell me something more universal. He was saying….fuck the naysayers, the people who oppose you just for fun, the trolls, the deniers, the people who try to hold you back. Fuck the constant resistance. Fuck the red tape, the politics, the lies, the bullshit. Fuck em all. Whatever you do, DO IT FOR YOU AND DON’T SPARE THEM AN EXTRA THOUGHT. That’s what he meant by it ♡
My dad was a chronic doodler - he would always be drawing little pen doodles on notebook paper and the stack of mail on the counter, and so in honor of his 61st birthday, I present a doodled momentary snapshot of my chaotic brain when I heard him repeating the words “Fuck em”…into the ether…to no one. From the blatant corruption of the Supreme Court to the baseless dribble of the Kardashian enterprise…Fuck Em all!
