vero's 4th vol

What accompanies your compassion? Is it heartfelt, or covered in guilt?

Is compassion true if not born of good?

I'm sitting across my father at a café. He's always been a man of few words. Not as in quiet, but as in limited vocabulary. He'll repeat the same phrases and sentences over and over, kind of like a CD on repeat. I could tell you with 95% certainty exactly what he's going to say in any given moment, yet I'm sat, listening, waiting for a new phrase. 

He's not doing well, basically rotting from the inside out. It's hard to look at him, but I need to look. I look and look away. I think often about our similarities, my mom once said I was just like him, and she didn't mean it in a good way. For 12 years I've been thinking about that comment. How am I just like him when we are also so different? I can see how I could be like him. I am half him, after all. 

He's been seemingly sentenced to pay off his karmic debt in this lifetime, I feel bad, but I don't pity him. I'm still sitting across from him, thinking of how much pain he's caused, but he seems so defeated. I feel compassion, yet I don't necessarily want to help.

I look at him until I no longer feel like we're at a public location. My body feels numb, my mind is silent, and my mouth is dry. What am I feeling?