Dear Dad,

I am letting you go.

It’s funny, you never even knew I was holding on. So why should you care that I’m letting go? I was never your little girl. You never even held me in your arms. So why does this hurt so much?

I know your story. You made a mistake. You panicked. You lashed out violently at my mom. You forced her to run away, to run for her life and mine.

I know your story, but you don’t know mine. You don’t know that I now have my own child. You have a grandson. He’s growing up so fast. Already over a year old. But you will never know him. Just like you never knew me.

This is unacceptable. A father should want to know his daughter. He should be there when his first grandson is born, toting a stuffed football from his alma mater. But you didn’t give a shit. How could you? You have no clue of his existence. Maybe you’ve even forgotten about mine. And now it’s time for me to forget about you.

This is why I’m writing to say ‘Good-bye’. I need closure. You don’t deserve any more of my emotional strength; I need to reserve it all for my son, who is wonderfully intelligent with high emotional demands of his own.

I want my son to have the world. I want to give him everything. I can’t give him you, and I hate you for that, for depriving him of something I have no control over. I can’t give him you, but I can give him something even better: life lessons. I will teach my son that family is made from the people who love him, people who care about him and are there for him at his best and worst. And he has so many of those people in his life already.

When he asks about you, I’ll tell him the truth, and he will learn from it. He will learn how to be a better man, a better husband, a better father. He will be a better person because you weren’t. If he ever wonders why his grandfather isn’t around to take him fishing like all of his other friends, I’ll impress him with the fact that not only can his grandmother catch a fish, she can cook it up for dinner, too. And she can’t wait to teach him how to do the same.

So good-bye to you. Good-bye to wondering if you’ll ever surprise me with a phone call, an email, a Facebook friend request. Good-bye to the emptiness that comes with never knowing your father. Good-bye to the pain of feeling so unloved by someone who is supposed to love you unconditionally. Good-freaking-riddance to the wasted hours I’ve spent trolling the internet for clues about what you might look like or where you might be. I no longer have the desire to know. I have more important things to wonder about, like how to get my son to eat his vegetables and where we should go for his first family vacation.

Dad, I hope you know the pain you’ve caused. I hope you dwell on it sometimes and it hurts you like it used to hurt me. But you can let go now, too. It’s been long enough. I’m too old to be a Daddy’s girl. I’m too focused on my beautiful Mama’s boy to hold a grudge against you.

You are dismissed from my thoughts. I am finally letting you go. And ultimately, it’s no one’s loss but yours.

Sincerely,

Every mom who was abandoned by their dad

 

About the author: Jessica is a first-time mom who loves to write as an outlet for her anxiety that comes along with raising a little boy and two yappy dogs. Credit for her creative inspiration goes to good wine and frequent travel. Jessica can be found on Facebook , and you can read about her personal adventures on Real Moms.

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Wannabe's are Guest Authors to BLUNTmoms. They might be one-hit wonders, or share a variety of posts with us. They "may" share their names with you, or they might write as "anonymous" but either way, they are sharing their stories and their opinions on our site, and for that we are grateful.

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