s T u D E s SEARCHING FOR OUR FATHERS By Don Hudson I tried to find out for myself, from the start, when I was a child, what was right and what was wrong-because no one around me could tell me. And now that everything is leaving me I realize I need someone to show me the way and to blame me and praise me, by right not of power but of authority, I need my father. -Albert Camus, The First Man hat do we do with our fathers? They teach us right from wrong; they forsake us. They praise us; they blame us. They show us the way sometimes by power and sometimes by authority. In the end, even the best fathers must leave, and to this day I do not know what is more tragic: losing a bad father or los- ing a good father. Either way, losing the father is infinitely sad. But there is more. Losing our fathers-whether through death, divorce, disillusion- ment, abandonment, or abuse-rends our hearts and flings open the door to desire. Even those who say they hare their fathers are captured by their intense desire for their fathers. It seems that we either love them or hate them-or both. We cannot escape our fathers. Life continues to open me up to search for my father, any father for that matter, and life continues to disappoint me, only to leave me yearning for a father even more. What should I do with my search for the father-that one who will show me the way so I don't have to go at it alone? My desire for a father feels way beyond my control. • • • On January 4, 1960, Albert Camus, novelist, essayist, playwright, hus- band, and father, died in a car accident near Sens, France. He was forty- seven years old and at the height of his career. He had written lucid modern works that grappled with the beauty and tragedy of life. Camus had a clear eye for the human condition. In The Stranger, most likely his best work, Camus writes of the alienated existence that every human lives. He invites us to throw off nihilism and absurdism in the name of moral commitment. STUDIES