What Father’s Day Means to Me, Darth Vader

When a lot of people think of me they only see the helmet or the super cool cape and boots combo I rock. They remember the times I’ve tried to conquer the galaxy and squash the rebellion or that PR nightmare when I destroyed Alderan.

What they tend to forget is that I’m also a father.

I know I haven’t been the best one but, in my own way, I’ve tried. It’s not easy parenting from a distance and I suppose I could have done a better job. The Force is great for a lot of things but keeping in touch with your kids isn’t one of them. In hindsight, it wouldn’t have been too hard to reach out to Leia and Luke with a long-range comm from time to time when they were younger. In my defense, though, I didn’t even know they were alive for quite a while.

The fact is that I never really knew my own father because I never had one. The Force willed me into existence like some kind of mystic fart and it set the stage for some tough times ahead in the fatherhood department. Let’s face it. Obi-Wan and I certainly had our problems. We didn’t exactly part ways on great terms when he left me to die in a river of molten metal. The second time around things didn’t go so great either and I won’t even get into how screwed up things got to be with Emperor Palpatine. These are not excuses, mind you, just reasons.

A therapist suggested that bumping off Palpatine and Obi-Wan was my way of finding closure with the Jedi. Of course, I had to Force-Choke the guy for having the balls to mention the idea that I, Darth Vader, needed closure on anything. Later on I thought there might be some truth to what he said.

Everyone thinks that the Jedi are so cool, but they’re really nothing more than a cult of hippy space wizards…

To read more just click through to What Father’s Day Means to Me, Darth Vader on Medium!

About the Author

derekbremer Prior to his life as a stay at home father Derek spent more than a decade performing public relations and marketing functions for financial consulting firms and found the job to be precisely as exciting as it sounds. When not tending to his wife or daughter Derek enjoys subjecting the public to his unique take on fatherhood, travel and animal husbandry. He has been published in Scary Mommy, Sammiches and Psych Meds, The Good Men Project, HowToBeADad, Red Tricycle, RAZED, HPP and the Anthology "It's Really Ten Months Special Delivery: A Collection of Stories from Girth to Birth.