7x70

   I am writing this to tell you how much damage you have done to me in my life. I highly doubt you will ever read this or that if you did, you would even care. I am writing this mostly for me... to try to heal. I can't believe that it has taken me this long to get this out. All these years, all I wanted was a relationship with you. All I wanted was my "daddy". I know now that you could never be that, you've never been that.
   I don't know the true circumstances of why you took me from my mother. I have been lied to so much about the events that led you to leave her and take me with you that I don't know that I would believe the truth if I were to finally hear it.
   You were supposed to protect me, I was your child. Parents are supposed to protect their children from harm. Instead, you decided to marry a tyrant of a woman who was physically, emotionally and verbally abusive. The abuse didn't escalate over time; it was like a light switch, as soon as you married her, her evil side came out. She was "loving" and "doting" when you were around to see or in public, but when she had the helpless three-year old behind closed doors, she put on her true face. Did you know that when you weren't around, which was often, your baby girl was being treated like a slave? Did you know about the screaming she did... two inches from my face? Did you know about me having to wait on her hand and foot? Did you know about the name calling, the belittling, the closed fist hitting in the head? Of course you didn't. How could you know? You married her and then you checked out and disengaged.... slept for 12 hours a day. The time that you were awake, you were "working" 12 hour shifts.
   Then, you had to let her talk you into giving her a child. Did she plead and beg? Maybe you knew about the abuse and maybe, just maybe you thought that after the new child was old enough the abuse to me would stop or lessen. Maybe you're just the biggest idiot of all.
   Instead of life getting better for me, it got worse. She gave birth when I was only six. The first few months were okay and then she went back to work, leaving the baby home with you. How did she figure you would take care of him? You slept all day long. In the afternoons when I got home from school, I would walk in the house and hear him crying. He would be laying in his crib in a soiled diaper. Who knows how long it had been since he last had a bottle? He was helpless, depending on a parent to take care of him. His basic needs were not being met when his mother wasn't home. I decided that something had to be done, so I took on the role of caregiver to him. I changed my first diaper at six years old.
   I would come home from school and instead of going outside to play or watching cartoons, I became a "mother". So many months of that made it second nature to me. Then he grew and didn't view me as "mother", but my mothering instinct had been turned on and I didn't know how to turn it off. I was seven years old, going on 25. I was constantly yelled at by his mother for trying to "mother" him or for making him mad or for doing anything that she didn't like me doing with him.
   My mothering didn't stop at home; it carried over to school, where they labeled me a "problem child" and told your wife. I was soon taken to a psychologist and then diagnosed with "ADHD" and promptly medicated. Little did any of you know what was happening to me when I was left with your brother. It had been happening to me as early as I could remember. In fact, it was my first memory! Perhaps that is the reason I was a "problem child". I was hurting and crying out in the only way I could think of and you all thought it was just a behavior issue. I wanted attention; from you, from your wife. I didn't care how I got it. I started lying and stealing. The abuse from your wife got worse. I hated my life so much that I would make up elaborate stories and tell them to people. They knew I was lying. The lying became second nature to me and at times I would even believe myself, even though I knew I was making it up.
   I don't know when you started having the affair. I remember one night in December when I was 11 years old; you and I were supposed to go do something together, a "date". I had been waiting all day to spend time with you. You came home from work and immediately you and your wife went into your room and shut the door. I thought you were just changing your clothes. I was oblivious to the fact that you had chosen that day, of all days you could have chosen, to leave. I was impatient and I kept knocking on the door every 30 minutes or so. It grew later and later and when you didn't emerge, I went to bed. It was around midnight that I heard the yelling. Your wife was screaming at you. I heard a truck pull up out front. I got out of bed to see who it was and saw two teenage boys and a woman. I saw you carrying a bag to the truck. Then the woman got out of the truck and your wife saw her and your packed bags started flying through the air toward the yard. I heard glass break, I heard more screaming. Your son was crying, he didn't know what was going on. Your wife was holding him and telling him that his daddy was leaving him. I stood frozen, at my window, watching you abandon me. You told me many times before how you had "saved" me from my birth mother's neglect; as I stood there watching you pack the truck, I was waiting for you to tell me to come with you. I waited. And waited. I waited for you to save me again and kept waiting until the tail-lights of the truck were no longer visible. Then I crept back to bed and curled into a ball and cried myself to sleep. For years, I thought I was to blame for why you left... if only I had left you and your wife alone during that night when you were talking. I thought that if I had left you two to work it out that you would have stayed. I didn't know that you had "left" many years before you actually left.
   I remember that you wouldn't give your ex wife the address of where you now lived and because of that she wouldn't allow me and your son to go anywhere with you. I remember you came to the house a few times to see us. You seemed different. You seemed happy. You finally told her the address and then she allowed us to go with you. You were supposed to come see us every other weekend but I guess you were too busy with your new family. We didn't see you very much anymore. Didn't get phone calls. It was like we didn't exist. Like you didn't create two lives. We were on our own, fatherless. The abuse to me spiraled out of control now. I was dragged down the hallway by my hair when I was only 12. I was constantly hit and told how worthless I was. I started to believe it.
   When I was almost 21, your wife died and left you alone and broken. You turned to me for comfort. I thought that I was finally getting my daddy. I thought that you were calling me two to three times a week because you cared about me. But it was just a way for you to vent and for you to heal. Then it happened, you found my birth mother again. The phone calls went down to once a week and then to once a month and then stopped all together. I kept the lines of contact open, calling you every week. I was reaching out for you, like I had always done and just like you had always done, you left me empty. You were able to pull yourself out of our own life long enough to come to my wedding. Then you and my mother started planning a wedding of your own. She asked me to be the one to perform the ceremony. It was the most awkward thing I have ever done.
   You have two grandsons who don't even know you. I haven't spoken to you in over a year and you haven't even tried to contact me.

I think I can finally say that it no longer bothers me that you don't give a crap about me, that you never did. So, in closing, I only have one more thing to tell you:

I lost count of all the times you let me down
But no matter how many times you weren't around
I'm alright now

God picked up my heart and helped me through
And shined a light on the one thing left to do
And that's forgive you
I forgive you

Dad, I forgive you.

7x70

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Dear Dad....

Friday, September 10, 2010

7x70

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