Dear Dad
Dear Dad,
I always thought I wouldn’t grieve your death. I had even warned my husband to not be surprised when the time came, and I would leave complete strangers to deal with all your personal belongings and body. After everything you put me through, why would I even bat an eyelash? Well, kind of true. Your body is still sitting on ice at the medical examiner’s office, it has been 40 days now. (At the time of writing this)
When I found out, I fell to the floor. I couldn’t breathe and started to hyperventilate. I screamed, I cried, I was punching the floor asking the universe why we were here in the first place! The next morning, we got in our car and drove to your house in Yarnell, AZ. What was unfolding was the complete opposite of what I thought would happen.
Am I grieving your departure or am I grieving what never was and what could have been? Probably both. Am I grieving the time lost? Or quite possibly I am grieving the loss of my anger. Using my anger/resentment over the years as a coping mechanism and now it is ripped from me, forcing me to grieve my abuse.
I was always guarded with you. I probably didn’t allow for a deep connected relationship either. Maybe it was me the entire time? Maybe you knew to keep your distance because I made that clear. Or, because you knew what you did, you didn’t feel worthy of our relationship. Well, here comes the guilt again. Like an abused animal from a shelter, who will flinch for the rest of her life. This grief is different.
You traumatized me as a little girl. I can still hear your words to me in my mind. Your angry face. Your voice running out of air while yelling at me, scolding me to not be a fat dyke like my mother.
Now, I am watching your friends write posts on your Facebook wall. It feels weird, I have never seen or heard people speak so highly of you. “He was so kind, warm and loving.” WHAT? Are we talking about the same person? Clearly, their experience was not my experience. Lots of confusion has settled within me. It is confusing because after all you did to me, we still had a relationship and I loved you. This also confused my friends and family. They do not understand how I could love a man that hurt me so deeply. Leaving scars so deep, they are rooted to my core.
To the world you were a bible study teacher who had given yourself to the Lord. You were involved in the community and painted a wonderful picture of yourself. Nobody knew the torture we were living once the doors were closed to our house. You became a different man when it was just us. My brother and I were your punching bags, and you took out all your anger on us!
You would throw us to the floor and sit on us until we couldn’t breathe
Pinch us until we were bruised
Twist our arms and legs forcing us to tap out
Make us repeat words to you that you wanted to hear
Kick us with your steel toed boots
Lock us away from the family
Withhold holidays
Beat one of us up while the other one had to watch as punishment
Bite, slap, pinch, pull, any way to inflict pain on us, you would
The emotional and mental abuse we endured, was tragic to say the least.
You had to enjoy seeing us suffer. How else could someone do this to their own children? You were extremely impatient with hair-triggered anger. If we didn’t understand you the first time, you would get flustered and demand we pay attention by instilling fear into us. Even doing homework with you was an awful experience. I can’t count how many times I got hit for not understanding a question or being able to explain how we got to an answer. There was no room for error in your eyes.
A wounded boy yourself. You were still tending to your own scars. It was understanding this that allowed me to start forgiving you.
Now that you’re gone, I can no longer be upset. Instead, I found some sort of empathy for you as a human being. The abuse I endured made me the resilient person I am today. I have no control over my past or your actions, but I do have control over how I respond.
Grief is not easy, and I am certainly still grieving your death. I think of you every day. When you were alive, I held on to all the terrible things you did to my brother and I. Now that you are gone, I can see the goodness through your broken mind. You were not all bad. I know how much you loved me and how regretful you were of your actions. Thank you for allowing me the space to heal over the years as I know patience was not your strong suit. I will forever hold on to the good memories we made over the years. And while I had forgiven you while you were alive, it was conditional. Now that the conditions have been removed, I have experienced true forgiveness and letting go.
Losing an abusive parent is a very different and complicated grief. What you did will never be ok, and our family is forever broken because of you. But true forgiveness heals and that is where I am now. I love you dad.
Love,
JellyBean
