Dear Dad:

 

I remember being a little girl wondering where it was you were so often, I use to watch the door thinking in time you'd be back from where ever you had to go.  Hours passed, months, years, yet I do remember when you were around that you loved me so much, that you'd let me do just about anything I wanted just to make me laugh.  I still remember those memories like it was yesterday.  I often questioned myself if the memories were so happy, that I truly felt your love than why are you no longer here with me?, why are you not here to make me laugh?, to love me?.  However as I got a little older I do remember seeing you every so often on the weekend but soon that faded, asked myself why but could never understand why.  Often times I looked around as I went places wondering where you were, that maybe if you seen me you would hug me and realise what you have left.

 

As I grew to an older young lady, constantly seeing other fathers with their daughters something in me broke, in me I felt all of me sink deep into low self worth, low self-esteem, feeling as though it was me that was not worthy to be loved, as though it was my fault I didn't have what all the other girls had around me.  As I kept growing it was as though that grew bigger in me, life was looked at through that little girls eyes that always sat and waited for you to come back but never did.  Remembering the emotions in me just made it all that more worse, it got to a point where when you wanted to take interest in my life what love I had was broke, that after all this time you were not ever around why allow it to happen now?  The lady I grew to be was strong on the outside but on the inside she was desperately seeking the love of her father, that all little girls should always have.  Part of my heart as I grew did not grow with me, yes the love of my Mother was bigger than life, her love made me the beautiful woman I am today.

 

I remember not feeling as though I was ever going to be worthy of anyone Else's love, that in all men I seen distrust, darkness, unworthy of, trying to seek love in all the wrong places, looking for what has been lost for so long not knowing it was never to get back.  So many times I remember that hurtful resentment I felt for you, just thinking of you made me want to hurt you just as much as you hurt me.  To this day I still feel that pain but this young lady knows I am worth it, that I am beautiful, that I do accept me, that I do love me but after all these years wasted I finally now see I AM worthy of anything, that I am someone, that I can be what ever it is I want to be, that I can do what ever it is I want to do.  Thirty-six years later and I finally just turned on my own light, I found my space, I found my wholeness.

 

 

To this day I can make peace with all the tears that fell, the suffering, pain, heart aches, I can finally say "I forgive you", I can finally find in my heart to let go of the suffering, the loss, the unworthiness, the negative of it all.  Yes time to time I think of would I ever of been better if you had been there?  I know now it was up to me to make that happen for myself not you yet your love probably would of made me a stronger person earlier in life rather than later.  Resentment sometimes when I see you?  Yes, yet it never lingers for too long, or stays within me to fester, I've learned to let go and forgive, I forgive for my own self love, to see you differently instead of with such anger, I see you as someone not that someone that hurt me, I see you as my dad, that even through the worse of it all I do love you, your my father, that you did love me but didn't know how to show it, you didn't know how to express it, that what ever it was it was not because of me.

 

The scar will always be there to be shown yet it is a scar I am proud to wear, it proves that I've been through the toughest of things but am a woman now and have made it through the battle proudly, never giving up, still able to love me, to find me, to be fully me, even with  out your love I did it.  I bare the scar proudly so others out there can see for themselves that they to will get through it.  Still to this day its as though I have no father, I know your out there but nothing is between us.  Of course I love you, your my father, do I like who you are?   probably not.  Do I forgive you?  YES because to forgive you frees me from the chains that will forever bound me to darkness if I don't.  Looking to my little girl I sometimes tear up knowing what a great grand daughter you have, and how much fun she would be, how happy you could be, yet know deep down that all her love she needs is all around her now that lacking yours is ok, that her to one day will forgive.

 

Now I think of her loss, her daddy by no means of his own has left her life, it makes me feel as though I cant breathe when I think she to will see so many with their fathers and wonder why she don't have hers no longer, yet with the knowledge I hold in my heart from knowing how that feels I will use it to love her the greatest, fullest that I can that in me I will represent her fathers love for him, that she to will know she can get through it, looking to me to know that I did to.  Both of us together will shine our lights bright out to the world to show others its ok to bare the scar they have, to be proud and show the world it is ok, not to hide it, its a scar that shows all you made it and are still making it through "The secret to change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new" ~ Unknown ~

 

 

So dad here I am watching you as I have never seen you before, I see you helpless, I see you breathing not on your own, I see so many wires connected to all parts of you, your eyes closed, monitors all around me, not knowing what to expect to happen out of this all.  I remember in some ways that's about how I felt as a little girl, but as I think this I don't feel the anger no more, I don't feel the resentment, I feel all I want you to know is that I love you, that no matter what I have always loved you, is it too late?  have I held on to this for too long?  is it too late or do you know in your heart I do?  So many questions weigh my heart down, yet I thought something that wouldn't be so hard turned out to be the worse of pain I could feel, that shocked in anger I say "why is this so hard?, I was never close to you like normal daughters should, understanding it didn't matter that love was there right from the day I was conceived and it didn't matter what happened between that I was still part of you and you part of me.

 

I keep looking to you in hopes to see you open your eyes, every day that goes by I wait for you to come through this, I visit you, I touch your hand, touch your forehead, I am there with heart full of love hoping you feel that.  It's funny each time I go there I hope to see that bull headed strong person around the corner awake and giving the nurses a hard time but it hasn't been like that, I see you helpless this time and it truly terrifies me.  I am thinking to myself "is this going to be it for us?  did we waste so much time not saying "I love you" that our time has run out?  So many emotions run through all of me, it's unbearable to feel, the tears fall so hard to the floor heavy with regret, knowing if this is it that now for the rest of my life I'd have to make peace with the fact I never told you what I should of.  I seen the true hurt in your eyes when you found out I lost my husband, but you can't see me to see that hurt in me if I lose you. 

 

I know deep down in all of me you know I love you, that you just have to know it, if I know it than you definitely do to, yet those words never spoken I will carry with me the rest of my life if you never make it back to me.  I look to you every day in eager hope that today's the day, today's the day you will be awake and better, so far that has not come, shattered again my heart feels, broken, debilitated, those feelings I've just only started to live with, yet they may be have to felt all over again.  I honestly do not know what I am going to do if you leave this world.  That's a bridge unknown so for now I will make sure I whisper in your ear "I love you" every time that you are not awake and know in my heart you hear it.   

 

 

Every night I will continue to pray for you, to pray for us, that this time around no matter where you are, you will know I love you, you will always know no matter what I love you.  To see you the way you are is a reminder once again that life is short, to not hold grudges, to always just love all and who that you can.  I hope that you know even if you were not around that because of you I am who I am today that I'm proud to be your daughter, I hope your dreaming of all the times we did have, the laughs, the smiles, the fun, spoiling me rotten, I always noticed the light in your eyes when you seen me so happy, and always wanted to see me that way.

 

I just want you to fully know and feel I love you so much dad, and do hope so deeply in my heart that you feel it, that you know, that some how some way God will whisper that to you every night while I'm sleeping, that he will comfort your heart in knowing that it doesn't matter about the past that in the present your daughter will love you forever, that your daughter will always be proud of her daddy where ever she goes.

 

I pray to the Lord he gives us another chance, yet if he don't I pray even more the first thing he lets you know is I love you so much, that I could of never had a better father than you even though our past is not what it should be that it doesn't matter that I forgave you and will love you always.  My daughter says this to her dad every night so tonight I say it to my daddy, "I love daddy, daddy loves me, God bless daddy, God bless me".