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To my father-
You always told me to be grateful for my single mother and all she did for me. But I do not feel grateful.
I don't feel grateful that I've been cooking my own hot meals since I was in 3rd grade, or for being alone whenever I burned myself on the stove that I wasn't tall enough to see over.
I don't feel grateful for the times you would relentlessly remind me that I was, am, and always will be nothing but a burden to my family.
I don't feel grateful to have talked through my pain with my elementary school peers, to whom I am incredibly sorry for exposing to stories that they never should have heard at that age.
But mom tried her best. You did not try at all.
You caused a lifetime of pain and trauma within the first decade of my life. Every single day I'm reminded of the abuse you put me through, both emotionally and physically.
The last time we spoke was on my 16th birthday when you told me what a disappointment I was and that I would end up a dropout and a teen mom. You never gave me the chance to rub it in your face that I graduated in the first position of my high school a year early, or that I got into my dream college with the presidential scholarship, or that I got married and have no children.
One year, one month, and 2 days after our final conversation, you had the privilege of dying. How dare you?
How dare you leave me broken with no happy memories of you since the age of five?
I'm reminded every day that I was the one that made you snap. I remember the day that I lost my daddy and experienced my first heartbreak– I didn't mean to spill the bucket of paint. That was the last day I saw love in your eyes. I was only five...
I am the reason that you're dead. Mom reminds me all the time. I'm the reason that you stopped taking your meds, ended up divorced from mom, became homeless, and ultimately– died.
The first time you almost died was when you refused to take your medication and had a heart attack and a double stroke. I was the one that found you when Mom dropped me off after threatening to leave me with you because I was disrespectful. She knew that you knew just how to beat my independence away. You knew how to remind me of how small and unimportant I was. And I stayed with you next to your hospital bed for 5 hours after school every day for a year. You said you hated me once regaining your speech after waking up from the coma.
The second time, I didn't find out until months after you entered the hospital when Grandma gave me the gory details– that you ended up having your leg amputated, that you were on life support, and that you didn't ask about or even mention me once for the year that you were still alive. How you went from a tall, muscular man to a shriveled, 100-pound helpless shell. The sounds you made when they declared you dead. She tells me the story every time I see her. It's her way of grieving a son that she never truly loved– maybe that's who you took inspiration from.
I'm 19 now, and I can hardly function. Your words, which are years past, still live in my thoughts. I flinch when my husband gets up too fast, and I cry when I see little girls with their dads. Whenever Mom yells at me, she's sure to mention you. (I don't feel grateful for that either).
So thank you to the man that was my daddy, then my dad, and now my father. Thank you for staining my mind with fear, helplessness, and a constant plea to start again and stand a few feet away from the paint bucket.
Thank you for giving me what most people call "daddy issues" because I'm terrified of men and so desperately crave love, even when I'm receiving it. Thank you for the endless oceans of tears and wildfires of anger.
Your words have convinced me to this day that I am nothing, and being a 19-year-old girl searching for someone to feel like a dad again, you were right. I cannot function. I am unimportant.
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