Letters to Heal "Every Kinda People"

Dad

I’ve needed to write you for years I think. I’ve never said many things to you for fear of hurting your feelings or having you retaliate the way you do. I think you’re a bully. You’re a bully in every sense of the word. You beat my mom to the point of her having to get stitches. We lived in a household of fear when you were drinking. I’d say drunk but I don’t believe you were always drunk. I think you used drinking as an excuse to do what you really wanted to do, which was hurt my mom. I know that mom did a lot of things that would frustrate anyone, but that never gave you the rite to ever touch her in anger. I believe no human being has a rite to do this. I remember the day she was beaten by you to the point she lied on the floor bleeding from her head. I remember watching you over her and she wasn’t moving. I remember quietly tiptoeing back to my bed and hiding under the covers because I was sure you were coming to kill all of us especially since I thought you’d already killed my mom.

All the yelling and screaming and fighting I was awake for most of the time. You always said that I was like a church mouse always awake and watching but the truth is I was fearful of sleep and fearful if I slept too soundly I might not wake up. I was afraid of the noises and that you all made and I couldn’t sleep through them. To this day I have a hard time sleeping and rarely sleep more than 5 hours at a time. I used to believe all these myths about why I don’t sleep before 1, 2 or 3 O’clock in the morning. “Smart people don’t need much sleep” or “I like writing when everyone’s asleep” The truth of it is more that I was fearful of sleeping too soon I had to make sure everything was okay and safe before I could sleep. You were usually passed out by the time 3AM rolled around and I could end my watch and relax and go to sleep. I’ve been on watch for more than forty years.

I loved you so much, you were my daddy but you left us and you didn’t say a word like goodbye. I remember when you took me from the home after leaving us and you took me to Aunt Belle’s house where you were staying since you were trying to separate from mom. I remember you left me with her and Mr. Dean while you went to work and I remember being left all alone all day. Aunt Belle took care of Mr. Dean and whenever I looked to them for anything they looked at me like I was some kind of Martian or something. They were obviously not happy to having me in their home. I was her Great Grand daughter but that didn’t seem to matter to her at the time. Maybe she was just fearful of getting stuck with me. I don’t know. I do know that after a few days you brought me back home after I tore down their curtain when I was crying from loneliness. You had sat me down and told me that you just couldn’t do it and I remember you crying. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t understand. I have no idea how our lives would have changed if I’d ended up living with you.

Over the next few years of growing up you weren’t there and you didn’t seem to want to be in our lives. Back then, I know that they didn’t do supervised visits and enforce such things for parents to keep in touch with their children but still I needed you, we all did, you were our dad, my daddy. You were an absent father and you left us with a woman who had major problems with maturity and her finances let alone her impatience with being “stuck” with us.

I’ve tried over and over to be someone you’d be proud of but I was always too fat or not employed the right way or didn’t finish college blah blah blah! You have all these expectations on us that we didn’t fulfill well I say to you Look at the house you built dad! You have a son who beat on women and treats them like spare luggage because that’s what he learned from you! I believe Mark is lost emotionally because of you and the loss of his dad at an early age. The way mom used to beat him and treat him I just to this day can’t bear it. Here is this incredible young man who played trumpet, excelled at sports, Drama, everything he put his mind to and he was beaten down by mom whom I suspect was trying to beat you back for all you did to her. The ways mom humiliated him just terrifies me and I’m sure adds to his inability to have a decent relationship with a woman. I believe you both took this away from Mark each in your own way!

When I was beaten up on the bus you put me down and yelled at me until I ended up bawling. I couldn’t understand how someone could injure me; keep kicking me when I was totally broken on the ground! What was that dad? Was that your way of toughening me up? The next time I was attacked you asked me if I was trying to get killed!

You refused to speak to me because I spoke to the mother of my cousins, your brother’s children! The legacy of hatred that Grandmother harbored you took on and it served you how? It still amazes me that Grandmother would treat her son’s precious children so hatefully as to let her hatred take the reins over her ability to connect with her son through his children. It is the saddest thing I’ll ever think of Grandmother and now you foolishly throw me away because of the same hatred. You know what I think, I think that you all didn’t want to love us, I mean truly love us, you’re fearful of what real love means. Someday I hope that my brothers and sister can somehow bride that chasm of hate you all created. In talking to my cousins they seem to have taken some of that hatred on as well. Hatred for the family they believe abandoned them. I can’t believe shame doesn’t move you to act differently. Maybe if you don’t feel shame you can kid yourself into believing you aren’t responsible for your actions because you don’t know any better. Shame on you dad! Shame on you for throwing away your brother a second time, on throwing away your children for fear we might actually expect something from you. Shame on you for believing that you don’t need anyone or needing us so much it upsets you to even try to be close to anyone.

You’re a lonely sad sick man and I pray that God takes care of you and opens your heart up so wide and big that you see the cavern you created and all the love that we represent that you’re missing. Grow up dad! Grow up!