Overture

I think you meant it, but I couldn’t trust you enough to believe you. For sure you were seeking some sort of closeness, but it was too late. There were too many years of silence, unspoken sentences and rejection. Too many looks of disgust that just brought home that you wanted a son and really didn’t like me too much.

The mistrust and the anger went way back, and I simply couldn’t reverse all those years in fifteen minutes of an apology, though I do give you credit for what must have been either a desperate or an incredibly difficult thing to do. It went against everything in you, but your fear of losing your children won out.

I wasn’t very gracious, and it only saddens me for all the things that weren’t, all the fun that wasn’t, all the friends that weren’t. At the same time your good side = affectionate, funny, soft – stopped me from cutting ties completely. I just kept quiet, hidden.

I had vastly preferred my loving father, but lost him to alcohol as he dissolved in a screaming, angry, insulting rage, dying early. Then you got nicer but not nice enough. That chaos, that rejection, that cruelty (you had to know it wasn’t right, there was something wrong but did nothing about it as it continued for years) pulled a piece of my mind away that I recovered later with the help of a good therapist, but not before I had my first abusive relationship, mercifully short.

I understand now and am simply sad as I grieve all that wasn’t and am thankful for all the good you did at no little cost to yourself. You really did try, both of you, and gave us both a hellish and a terrific childhood.

I couldn’t rise to that occasion, and I realize that I am simply human, just like you.

Kathleen O