An open letter

Dear dad,

12 years ago yesterday you left my mom. Actually you left your family. You like to say you were just leaving my mom, but what do you call not trying to contact your own children during the month that followed? Did you really think you could pick and choose when you wanted me in your life? That’s not how it works. But I’m not angry anymore. Seriously, I should hate you for everything that you done, but it got to tiring being mad. It was ruining my life and barely affecting yours. So I let go.

I let go of the fact that you chose to tell my mom that you were having an affair and you were leaving her, then proceeded to go to sleep in the same bed as her as if what you just said was okay.

I let go of the fact that you decided to go golfing the next day instead of telling your children what had happened. I let go of the fact that you made my brother be your caddy and told him while you were on the back nine. I let go of the fact that you continued to play while my brother was crying in the golf cart.

I let go of the fact that you made my mom tell me what was going on and how you conveniently left out the part of the other woman. Or while I was crying in my bedroom you just kept walking by with bag after bag of your things, never stopping to see how I was or try to comfort me.

I let go of the fact that you were engaged with the other woman before the divorce was even final. Or how you told the judge that my mom brainwashed me into hating you. Yes, that’s why I didn’t want to see you, because I was brainwashed not for your actions or the threatening letters you sent to my mother.

I let go of the fact that you tried only a handful of times to see me. I was angry with you, but you should have beat down the door and made me talk to you. Even if my mother was preventing you from seeing me, which I know isn’t true; you should have made it happen. You were the adult and I was the child.

I let go of all this and tried to have a relationship with you again in college. I contacted you, played by your rules, never asked questions that you couldn’t answer, and even visited you at your home with your new wife all in the hopes of repairing what was done. But nothing happened. You didn’t try. You wrote me one sentence e-mails once a week and thought that was sufficient. It wasn’t. I wanted a father, not an acquaintance. When I pushed for something more you called me superficial and tried to blame it on me. Again, you’re the parent and I’m your child, I shouldn’t have been doing all the work in the first place. It should have been you to contact me, you should have answered all my questions even the tough ones, you should have visited me to make me more comfortable instead of telling me it was to expensive and then going on vacation to Florida a month later.

I had to let you go again. The relationship was killing me and I was constantly unhappy. I was looking for a dad; instead I got a shell of the man who used to be him. You tried to blame me for what happened, but I know the truth. You can go ahead and tell people what a horrible and manipulated person I am, but I know the truth. I was never after you money all I wanted was you. You just didn’t want me, or my brothers for that matter.

I am truly not angry with you anymore. Just filled with sadness. When I see fathers with their children, I wished that were you. When I go to wedding and the bride is walked down the aisle with her father, I know that will never be me. You will never see me on my wedding day, or when I have children. You will miss out on my entire life and it’s all your choice. I feel sorry for you. Sorry for the fact that you have 3 amazing children who you barely even know. Sorry for the fact that you never tried to know us. We will be better people without you in our lives, but you will be for the worse now that we’re not.