UPDATE on Thanassis‘ story:
Thanassis (67) is a widower and father to Lisa (43), who lives in the States with her family, as well as Bernadeth (38) and Manuel (33) who are both based in Melbourne. His wife Koula, passed away from breast cancer 4 years ago and he has not been able to cope with the loneliness since then. For the past 4 years, he has been living with his oldest daughter in San Francisco.
Now, he returns to Melbourne to recompense for what he feels was a lack of fatherly affection to the rest of his children. He moves in with Bernadeth, her husband and their children Emma (15) and Sophia (5), whom he babysits now that he is retired. He quickly finds himself endearing to the child’s way of thinking.
On one Sunday, he discovers his son’s address and decides to go to his city apartment for a surprise visit. The surprise is reversed on him when the door is opened by another man, a stranger. As it turns out, this man is Manuel’s partner, Josh, whom Manuel has been building up the courage to introduce to his father. With a strict upbringing in a conservative household, Thanassis is outraged and storms out of the building, shunning his only son and the remaining bearer of the Manosopoulos family name. He refuses to accept his son’s homosexuality and finds himself pushing his children away even more. As it turns out, the whole family had known Manuel’s secret but had kept it from Thanassis, for fear of his reaction.
The rest of the story sees Thanassis trying to adapt to the modern way of thinking and assimilating (at least attempting) to his children’s new lives. He is no longer the father he needed to be in the past, when they were still kids. He must learn to change himself if he is to be a part of their family.
“Thanassis (67) is a widower and father of three. His wife passed away from cancer four years ago, bringing him to a new understanding of loneliness. He comes to a realisation that he spent his youth working, and as a strict father, he feels that he had pushed away his children in the process. In an attempt to find purpose in his new life, he tries to get closer to his three kids, despite all of them having their own families and living away from home. He discovers a second chance for redemption by bonding with his middle child’s daughter, Sophia (5), nurturing her like his own.”
