Actually, despite supposedly being good with words, I can’t express in words exactly how I am feeling.
Let me try to explain, and please don’t judge me too harshly.
You see - I just heard my father died on Monday.
Problem is - I was more upset when I heard a while ago that Matt Searcey had died. I felt closer to Matt; an online friend from Al’s Place whom I’d never met and hadn’t chatted to in ages, than to my own father, who I never knew at all.
He left my mother, my brother Steven and I when I was six years old, and I honestly don’t have a single memory of him. No good times, no sitting on Daddy’s knee, nothing.
Growing up, there was no child support, no birthday cards, no Christmas presents. I’ll confess that I thought of him as dead, because it was easier to bear than being abandoned by a father who seemed to have forgotten we existed.
I heard nothing at all from him ‘til just before my 40th birthday. His sister Yvonne and my mum remained friends. He asked his sister to ask if Steve and I would be prepared to try to establish a relationship. Independently, we both said yes, but he’d have to make the first move.
His move was to send me a flowery, gushing birthday card from his home in Canada [for anyone who doesn’t know, I’m British] saying ‘Birthday greetings across the miles’ like he was away on a business trip. No letter, just ‘all my love, Dad.’
I sent a message thanking him for the card, but again said he should be the one to initiate a dialogue. Yvonne told us that his wife [2nd or 3rd, I’m not even sure] had died and he was feeling his own mortality. He admitted to her he wanted to come back to Britain, and was looking to Steve or I to help him in his advanced years.
I heard nothing ‘til Christmas, when I got another card, all love and roses, and a very brief note on the inside cover. No apology, no regrets, no real explanations of his side of the story – just that there had been faults on both sides. No duh!
A lot of things had been going on in our lives at that time which I won’t go into here, but my family was feeling very vulnerable and fragile. An adult who professed to be a family friend but who broke promises and tried to come between us left my kids hurt and confused. I didn’t want them to meet their grandfather only to have him do the same.
So I wrote the hardest letter of my life.
I told him if he wanted forgiveness for leaving us, he had it. I wished him well. If he wanted money or a place to live, sorry, but we had none to spare. He may be my biological father, but he was in effect a stranger. I’d done okay without him for 35years, and I didn’t need him now. I felt guilty for shutting him out, but I honestly couldn’t handle it.
My brother told my mum that he’d done more or less the same. I’ve just learned he changed his mind and did establish contact, and my father visited Steve and his wife a few years back when she was ill with cancer. Steve now says he doesn’t know why he bothered. He found Pete totally self-centered and not interested in Steve and his family at all beyond what they could do for him.
Still, now I’m feeling wicked, because I profess to be a Christian, and the third commandment states that I should ‘Honor my father and my mother’.
Trouble is, I never felt like I had a father. I know I should be distraught at the death of a parent, and yes, I am sad, but as I said, to me he effectively died when I was six. My eyes are moist writing this, but I can’t cry for him. I cried for Matt.
What does that say about me?
Let me try to explain, and please don’t judge me too harshly.
You see - I just heard my father died on Monday.
Problem is - I was more upset when I heard a while ago that Matt Searcey had died. I felt closer to Matt; an online friend from Al’s Place whom I’d never met and hadn’t chatted to in ages, than to my own father, who I never knew at all.
He left my mother, my brother Steven and I when I was six years old, and I honestly don’t have a single memory of him. No good times, no sitting on Daddy’s knee, nothing.
Growing up, there was no child support, no birthday cards, no Christmas presents. I’ll confess that I thought of him as dead, because it was easier to bear than being abandoned by a father who seemed to have forgotten we existed.
I heard nothing at all from him ‘til just before my 40th birthday. His sister Yvonne and my mum remained friends. He asked his sister to ask if Steve and I would be prepared to try to establish a relationship. Independently, we both said yes, but he’d have to make the first move.
His move was to send me a flowery, gushing birthday card from his home in Canada [for anyone who doesn’t know, I’m British] saying ‘Birthday greetings across the miles’ like he was away on a business trip. No letter, just ‘all my love, Dad.’
I sent a message thanking him for the card, but again said he should be the one to initiate a dialogue. Yvonne told us that his wife [2nd or 3rd, I’m not even sure] had died and he was feeling his own mortality. He admitted to her he wanted to come back to Britain, and was looking to Steve or I to help him in his advanced years.
I heard nothing ‘til Christmas, when I got another card, all love and roses, and a very brief note on the inside cover. No apology, no regrets, no real explanations of his side of the story – just that there had been faults on both sides. No duh!
A lot of things had been going on in our lives at that time which I won’t go into here, but my family was feeling very vulnerable and fragile. An adult who professed to be a family friend but who broke promises and tried to come between us left my kids hurt and confused. I didn’t want them to meet their grandfather only to have him do the same.
So I wrote the hardest letter of my life.
I told him if he wanted forgiveness for leaving us, he had it. I wished him well. If he wanted money or a place to live, sorry, but we had none to spare. He may be my biological father, but he was in effect a stranger. I’d done okay without him for 35years, and I didn’t need him now. I felt guilty for shutting him out, but I honestly couldn’t handle it.
My brother told my mum that he’d done more or less the same. I’ve just learned he changed his mind and did establish contact, and my father visited Steve and his wife a few years back when she was ill with cancer. Steve now says he doesn’t know why he bothered. He found Pete totally self-centered and not interested in Steve and his family at all beyond what they could do for him.
Still, now I’m feeling wicked, because I profess to be a Christian, and the third commandment states that I should ‘Honor my father and my mother’.
Trouble is, I never felt like I had a father. I know I should be distraught at the death of a parent, and yes, I am sad, but as I said, to me he effectively died when I was six. My eyes are moist writing this, but I can’t cry for him. I cried for Matt.
What does that say about me?