A Letter

January 1, 2009

Dear Daddy,

You’ve been gone for…25 years.

After you died I wasn’t sad. I was relieved. And angry with you because I felt like, one last time, you had to mess up a chance for me to have a friend. To not be alone.

I was supposed to spend the night with Lisa the night you died. When Mommy picked me up at school and told me you had died my first thought was, “I’m not going to get to send the night with Lisa. I shouldn’t even bother asking because the answer will be no and I will look like I don’t care that you died.” Even though I didn’t care.

I spent so much time alone the first 12 years of my life.

You liked people.

Do you know what it is like to be isolated?

How empty it feels?

How lonely?

How unloved you feel?

I just wanted to be with you. To be part of something. To feel loved.

I can still feel the hollow, lonely, empty place in my soul.

What you did feels like it took part of my soul.

Before you died you asked for me to come to your hospital room – you wanted to give me your parting words. The wisdom of your life. Your hopes and dreams for me.

It meant nothing.

And I feel guilty for that.

I wanted to care. I didn’t want to be angry at you. I wanted you to be the Dad that I could trust.

And I didn’t trust you. I believed through your whole illness. Through all your apologies as you grew weaker and weaker and closer to “God”.

That if the doctors found a way to make you better that things would be the same.
This is the only thing I believed.

I didn’t understand how you could be such a hypocrite and “repent”. Did you really believe that all you have to do is say you’re sorry and then it goes away?

It doesn’t work that way.

And anyway, you never apologized to me.

You only apologized to Mommy after we had been summoned to the side of your bed to read the scriptures to you.

And only once as I recall.

And, from my perspective, you were sorry because you knew what you had done was wrong and now you were dying.

Convenient.

I have never felt your presence since you died. I know it is because I have shut you out. I’ve felt Joel and Lauren’s presence – anytime you’ve been on the periphery I’ve closed myself. It probably hurts you. I’m sorry that I haven’t forgiven you.

It’s still the same. I want to care about you but, really, I have to protect myself first.

If I allow myself to care about you then I will get hurt.

Not by your fists – that was never what really hurt.

But by the loneliness.

By the withdrawal of attention and love.

So here I am now. I’m 37. I just got a divorce last year and not a week – sometimes not even a day - goes by where I don’t think, “Thank God I’m not married to that man anymore”.

I want to be happy.

Mommy lives close by.

You really did a number on her.

Did you love her?

Why did you hurt her?
She is kind.

She used to plead with you not to hurt her.

How do you think it feels to hear your mother beg like an animal? Beg not to be beaten?

I can still hear her voice pleading with you.

I wanted to kill you.

Do you remember when you made her take off her clothes so she couldn’t run away from you while you beat her? And she was so afraid that she ran out of the house naked?

Why did you do that to her?

I hate you.

I don’t want to hate you.

I hate you!

And here I am again with that hollowness in my soul.

Is it the spot in your soul where you are supposed to feel love for your father?

On the day of your funeral I remember riding in the hearse. As we drove through downtown Des Moines I saw one of your students, a young man who you had mentored. He had been late for the funeral and as the hearse drove by he realized he had missed your service (very touching – the dutiful daughter had to read a poem – everyone was so touched because I read it without even crying). The instant of this realization, this young man crumpled to the sidewalk in anguish.

You see, you had made a difference in his life. And he was sad that you were dead.

And I wanted to feel that…