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June 16th, 2026 -- All Good Things
Yesterday I watched the penultimate episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which only leaves the finale titled "All Good Things" I started this show with my dad about 10 years ago. He died 6 years ago. I'm no stranger to slowly getting through old TV, it took me about 6 or so years to get through X-Files, but in the final stint of that I was burning through episodes. With TNG, I've been more and more reluctant to watch it with each and every episode. Each episode is one step closer to the end. One step closer to saying by to my dad again.
It's stupid really, my dad binge watched the show without me and rewatched it multiple times. Aside from that first season, this really wasn't our show, not in the same way that we had watched every episode of Star Trek: Enterprise together for the first time. I associate TNG and Voyager with my dad a lot though, he was always catching episodes on TV when I was a kid. I always loved it. Star Trek, along with airplanes, was something my dad and I could talk about a lot, andseemingly only with each other. My sister and mom don't care for it at all, and even the addition of my step-family didn't find any allies. It was just me, my dad, and the crew of the Enterprise(s). It still feels that way since no one I know actually watches the show, they just know about it. After each episode I finish I find myself wanting to talk about it with someone, and the first person I always think of is my dad.
My dad and I had a rocky relationship, the way most teen boys do with their father. The distance of going to university halfway across the world in Canada while he still lived in Qatar did smooth it over somewhat...but I think that healing was only just beginning. He wasn't a great texter, and I wasn't great at picking up the phone. But as I grew into my early 20s I think I saw him and where he was coming from a lot more. His death robbed me of being able to actualise that into a healthy relationship, nevertheless each passing year I grow to respect and love him more. He came from an incredibly rough upbringing in the middle of Nowhere, Paraguay, and through sheer effort and determination he became one of the most senior pilots in one of the top rated airlines in the world. He was the first Paraguayan to be rated on more than a handful of planes he flew, and he did this while in an unhappy marriage wherein he still sacrificed so much out of love to give me and my sister the best shot at life he could. And I was pretty ungrateful for it. Sometimes justifiably, he wasn't always the most emotionally well-adjusted. Yet when I think about where he came from and who his father was, I'm genuinely amazed. I'm grateful for how he gave me the tools to become the man I am today. So much of me empathy, curiousity, and sense of justice comes directly from him.
I think in many ways I emotionally picked up where he left off to further develop into a healthier masculinity, but in other ways I think of what he did at 29 and how I haven't even come close. I know I'll be looking up to him for the rest of my life, and with each passing year there's another few conversations I wish I could have had with him. And with each episode, I feel like I get a fragment of another conversation. When I finally watch "All Good Things" though... that comes to an end. There's nothing to replace it. I'm going to be saying goodbye to the crew of the Enterprise-D after 10 years, but I can always come back to revist them. My dad? I'll be saying goodbye for the last time.
And it really hurts.
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