Letter to my Father - Trigger warning

[strugglin]

Dear dad,

I find myself waiting for you to die. Don't mistake this statement with a vengeful intent. I don't wish you were dead as punishment for anything you have done or neglected to do. It isn't something that makes me happy or satisfied. I'm sorry you are ill and are suffering. You have been suffering for so long I honestly don't know how you have managed to stay alive. No one deserves the suffering you have gone through.

Because you are suffering, and because I know you are broken, and because I am sure you must be full of regrets even though you have never said "I'm sorry" (maybe you even regret not saying "I'm sorry"), I probably will never say these things to you. There doesn't seem any point after all these years. I know that no one who is emotionally healthy would neglect and harm his own children in the ways you did when we were growing up. There is something deeply hurt within you, and I have no wish to hurt someone who seems incapable of taking responsibility and trying to make amends. But some things need to be said in this letter, for me, and not for you.

I have lived almost 50 years never knowing the love of a father. In the past few years since mom died, you have said the words, "I love you" a handful of times, and I have said those words back because I do love you, and I do believe you love me as best as you can.

I have lived, however, all these years, with a deep sense that I am deficient, of low value, unlovable, and undeserving, and I think you would be devastated to hear that this is because of you. I'm not sure if you even realize the damage you have done, I think the years of drugs and alcohol have damaged your ability to understand. I grew up never feeling like you had my back. When you yelled and were angry with me whenever I needed clothes for school, when you begrudgingly took us to KMart for back to school shopping and refused to come in the store with us because we were wasting your time, and when you ran in the store to yell at us because we were taking too long (20 minutes?), and scowled and complained about the money you had to spend so I could have a new shirt for school, I didn't know other families weren't the same but that didn't stop it from hurting.

When I saw you violently assault my 9 year old big brother, I hid behind the couch, terrified that I would be next. Late at night, when your truck would pull into the driveway I would bury myself under the covers and under my pillow but I couldn't drown out your drunken berating of our mother. You criticized and demeaned her relentlessly. You complained about the food she had lovingly prepared 6 hours before at dinnertime, that it was dry and inedible and that she was useless and did nothing. You wailed and argued and I just wished I was somewhere else.

After years of this, it is no wonder I didn't fight back at the bullies in grade school. I was conditioned to believe I was worthless garbage, so I kept my head down and accepted my fate, accepted the daily barrage of put downs and punches and kicks, even when the teacher punched me in the head and knocked me out momentarily, I didn't tell you or mom because I never knew it wasn't acceptable.

I don't need to go on and list all the ways you harmed me and formed the way I view myself. It seems pointless. I honestly don't hate you for any of it. I even forgive you. That doesn't mean I am no longer affected. You didn't know you were instilling the programs in my brain that have made my life a constant struggle.

When I see my godchildren, I have nothing but love for them. I can't imagine wanting anything but the best for them. It thrills me to see them happy and love spending time with them. They are beautiful and pure. I was beautiful and pure too, dad. I wish I knew that. I wish you saw that. How damaged you must have been to be so neglectful, so angry, to a small child.

I am sad that even though you are my dad, it's like I never really had a dad. I have a void, a space inside that was never loved. I don't even know how to be loved, how to accept love. I have chosen people who don't know how to love because that seems right. I have rejected those who try to love me because that feels foreign and fake. I can't believe it's true.

I have worked very hard over the years to heal the damage you have done in me. It feels like I am climbing up a crumbling hill.

When mom died, I felt like the only person in the world who truly loved me was gone. You say you love me, and I know you love the best way you know how, but when you have never acknowledged the harm you have done, when you have never apologized for any of it, there is no love for me to receive. I forgive you, but it's hard to forgive someone who never acknowledges a need to be forgiven.

If you ever came to me, and expressed regret for the neglect and abuse in my childhood, if you simply said you were sorry, so much could be healed. Just to hear it from you, to help me shed the shame that I was to blame, that I was worthless, when all along the shame belonged to you. I have carried your shame as my own all these years.

When you die, I will cry a thousand tears. I will grieve the father I never had. I guess that's what I've been doing my whole life.