Sean Diaz. I feel a kinship with this emotional teenage boy, the protagonist of Life is Strange 2. I too lost my father at a young age. That is about where our similarities end. I’m white. I don’t smoke. My mother was around throughout my childhood. So why are there tears streaming down my face as Sean bums a cigarette off his mom outside of a motel?
Perhaps it is because I know this is the start of a better relationship between Sean and his mom. I grew distant from my own mom when my dad died. I was angry at the world and didn’t know how to express it. I can’t pinpoint a moment like sharing a cigarette that marked the start of us forming a better relationship. It was little things. Like sharing a beer, or washing dishes together, and just talking. Lots of talking.
So I think the reason why I’m crying is because I know that new memories are going to be formed with his mom, and because no new memories will be formed with his dad. Sean’s mom tells him that his dad hated when she smoked, but would take a drag off her cigarettes after they’d fight. I wonder what he’d think of Sean smoking. Would he ever share a cigarette with his son? Sean will never know.
I’ll never really know my father. Just as Sean will never really know his dad. Our memories will fade. But Sean and I have mothers who can share stories with us. “It will have to do,” I think to myself as I wipe the tears from my eyes, and Sean put out his cigarette as he enters the motel again.
