Dear Daddy,

That is the first time I have called you that in 9 years. I quit using any terms of endearment when I told you that I never wanted to see you again. That day on the phone, when I found out just how much of the darkness you had given yourself over to. Since then, you have only been “John” or “my earthly father”. I needed that seperation of you in my mind, but today I am not writing out of anger, rage, and hate for what you did. No, today I am writing as a little girl who misses her daddy and wishes that his love for her had been enough to overcome his demons.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I can feel you again
But I just miss you, and I just wish you were a better man
But I know why we had to say goodbye like the back of my hand
But I just miss you, and I just wish you were a better man” -Taylor Swift

I keep waiting for anniversary dates to get easier, for it to become just dates on a calendar. I thought this year would be better. You have been gone for 2 years now, and it’s been almost a decade since I escaped. I thought when I forgave him and let go of my anger, hate, and bitterness over the last 3 years that I would feel normal on anniversary dates, but here I am on the anniversary of your death, finishing a writing piece I started on Father’s Day. The last two weeks have been hard; I’ve felt tired and heavy, sad and lonely, numb and melancholy. It was the same anniversary week in April, which I actually had forgotten about until one day, I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t stop crying. Apparently, processing all of the anger and hate towards you, so all that is left is grief and sorrow. And that is what I have spent the last two weeks doing: grieving you. Not grieving the monster you became but the man who gave himself over to the darkness and the empty chair in my heart you left when you did.  It’s been 9 years since a really celebrated Father’s Day, but the truth is, this has been a hard day for as long as I can remember. You were never happy or content; it didn’t matter how hard I twirled or how big a feast I prepared for you. Nothing was good enough for you; you were miserable all the time, and I never understood why. I never felt that you were truly happy, never saw pure joy in your eyes; you were the one person I could never please.

“I wait by the door like I’m just a kid
Use my best colors for your portrait
Lay the table with the fancy dishes
And watch you tolerate it
If it’s all in my head, tell me now
Tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow
I know my love should be celebrated
But you tolerate it, “– Taylor Swift

I knew you were a miserable, troubled man, even before you went and gave yourself to the demons that plagued you, even before you gave in to your evil desires to hurt others. You were angry, misogynistic, passive-aggressive, and extremely narcissistic. I hated myself for missing you. I thought it was a weakness, and I took all the grief that was coming up now and buried it deep. I wanted to hate you; I thought it would be less painful. I tried to hate you but I never could. Do not misunderstand me, I was deeply and fully angry with you for years. I had never understood what it was like to have the desire to physically hurt another human being, but after that news report, if I had seen you, I think I would have. Never before and never since have I felt such a deep rage. You had hurt almost everyone I loved, and I wanted to rip you to pieces for it. With that anger came a cold, quiet resolve to leave you, to change my name, and never look back. I didn’t believe I would ever need to grieve your loss in my life because it was a good thing you were gone. I should have been happy that I was free of you at last. After all, you were a dangerous criminal accused and later convicted of truly sickening crimes. Before I found out about the worst of your crimes, I had tried to stay in a relationship with you, I had tried boundaries and restricted access, hoping that you would get the help you needed and turn around. But you couldn’t respect those boundaries; to you, “honor your father” meant no boundaries, no consequences, no questions, and no limits. It meant full entitlement of my time, money, and resources. It took years for me to feel safe in public again, years before the nightmares of you stalking me subsided. I escaped you, but there was no escape from the pain you left inside me.

“I know I’m probably better off on my own
Than lovin’ a man who didn’t know
What he had when he had it
And I see the permanent damage you did to me

I wish it wasn’t 4 a.m., standing in front of the mirror
Saying to myself, you know, you had to do it
I know the bravest thing I ever did was run”- Taylor Swift

How am I supposed to rationalize in my mind that you were both abuser and provider? father and tyrant? How can you be both the person who haunts my nightmares and also the person whose love I most sought? It doesn’t make sense in my brain, and as my therapist and I discussed, it shouldn’t. You were supposed to be my hero, my protector, and the person who valued me most. I tried so hard to please you, so hard to make you happy. Mom says that at one point, when I was small, I did bring you joy, that you were happy to have a girl, even when your misogynistic brother felt bad that your firstborn would be a girl. I don’t remember much of that, but maybe that is what I was trying so hard to get back. I never knew which dad I was going to get, the fun one who took me on bike rides or the moody one who stomped around and yelled at me for bothering him. One day, you would be excited to go hiking at the nature park with us, and the next day, you would talk about how much you hated it. I could never keep up with what was okay that week and what wasn’t. I never knew if you truly wanted me.

“I know I’m probably better off all alone
Than needing a man who could change his mind at any given minute
And it was always on your terms
I waited for every careless word
Hoping they might turn sweet again
Like it was in the beginning” -Taylor Swift

The older I got, the more confused I became. One day, you were bringing me roses from the garden, and the next, you were telling me I had gained too much weight from eating ice cream. I was a size 0. Do you have any idea the damage that did to me? You said you loved me, but then ignored me. You called me rebellious, but I could never figure out what  rules I had broken; they changed daily. If I confronted you, then you told me I was bad and disrespectful. If I asked questions, then I was a problem child. You would scream that I was grounded when you were angry, but then try to get me to watch TV with you later. You spent years rejecting me, telling me that you were too tired to play with me or take me anywhere, but then in highschool when my Saturdays were spent working or doing homework, you all of a sudden had all the time in the world. Then, when I told you I couldn’t spend time with you, your mood would shift and you would grow angry and cruel again. Somehow, it was always my fault; I was always to blame. When my next free weekend  came around,  I would ask you to do something, and you would be back to telling me to go away again.

Praying the floor won’t fall through again
You paint me a blue sky
And go back and turn it to rain
And I lived in your chess game
But you changed the rules every day

You are an expert at sorry and keeping the lines blurry
Never impressed by me acing your tests- Taylor Swift

My therapist said I am not just grieving for you, but that I am grieving for that little girl who tried so hard. The little girl who so desperately wanted to be in your world. You spent so much time chasing my brother, trying to get him to watch sports or play basketball. Wanting him outside doing yard work with you, wanting to take him fishing and hiking. Could you not see me? The child who crawled in your lap during football games, the child who wanted to understand what she was watching? The girl who wanted to play basketball with you and who was ready with her Barbie pink fishing pole. Did you forget which child you did not have to ask to come outside with you, who helped you plant flowers, and rake the leaves? Did you not see which child was on the garage floor while you worked on things just to spend time with you? But you were always chasing my brother and getting angry when he didn’t share your interests. I wanted to scream, “I am right here!” Would it have helped if I were a boy, or if I had been less girly? Did you think I couldn’t play sports in my dresses and ribbons? I so desperately wanted your attention. I wanted you in my world, but you wouldn’t come, so I tried to enter yours, but you shut me out. I feel so sad for that little girl who so desperately just wanted her daddy’s love and attention. Who just wanted to make him smile and please him. But you refused to give it to me.

“Long were the nights when
My days once revolved around you
Counting my footsteps
Well, maybe it’s me
And my blind optimism to blame
Or maybe it’s you and your sick need
To give love, then take it away
– Taylor Swift

I thought I was growing depressed again. All I have wanted to do is sleep lately, and I have been craving comfort food. I have spent most of the last two weeks watching old black-and-white movies. I haven’t wanted to go out and have sought very low stimulation activities; everything has felt exhausting. I have been cycling through numbness and feeling vulnerable, between desperately needing ot be around people and isolating. I didn’t go to church on Father’s Day. I couldn’t; I pictured the photo booth and all the dads with kids climbing on them in the lobby, and I burst into tears. I couldn’t do it, I stayed home, I made a small group that night, but I was distant and felt like I was in a funk. The next sunday the sermon was on grief and suffering. I cried during the service, then went to the altar for prayer and wept into a friend’s shoulder, then sobbed to another friend in the lobby.  My therapist said I am finally grieving the loss of you. Grieving the invisible loss of what should have been, I had convinced myself that I didn’t need you, that I didn’t miss you. I don’t need a father; I can do it all myself, and to a degree, that is true, but your failure, neglect, abuse, and death left an emotional hole in me. All that trauma left an emotional need unfilled, and that is part of what I am grieving.

Dear John, I see it all now that you’re gone
Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with?
The girl in the dress cried the whole way home.
Dear John, I see it all now. It was wrong
Don’t you think I was too young to be messed with?
To be played by your dark, twisted games when I loved you so?” -Taylor Swift

I would not have expected to be grieving this hard. I lost you 9 years ago when we became estranged. I changed my name 8 years ago, and I quit calling you dad 9 years ago. I only saw you once before you died, and that was 2 years ago. Grief is a funny thing. There are those who don’t believe I should be grieving you, which is one of the reasons I suppressed for so long. I have endured comments that you should have been murdered in prison, that I shouldn’t grieve or miss you when you were so awful. I have been told that I should be over this by now. Part of me agrees, part of me is tired of talking about this, tired of processing it, tired of connecting dots back to you. I am exhausted from choosing to work with Jesus and break all the generational curses you left me with. I also have been left with the grief of knowing that no matter how hard I love someone, it won’t be enough to save them.

I hope you found your peace. I hope  you really did mean the prayer you prayed that final time. I hope someday in heaven, I get to meet the real you. I hope July 7th really was a day of freedom for both of us. I wish you had chosen Jesus, healing, and help here before the darkness fully consumed you. I wish you had gotten help after being confronted about your first addiction before it grew darker. I wish I knew what trauma and pain happened to you when you were young and vulnerable to shape you into what you became. I don’t know anything about your childhood, but it could not have been good. I choose to believe you meant the words you spoke in repentance that last day I saw you. I wish we had gotten a little more time after that, but other people made it not safe for me to return to you. One day, I hope this is just another part of my story. That one day these anniversaries will pass by quietly, I don’t want to miss them or forget them, but one day I hope they won’t feel so heavy. I hope you know, despite it all, I still love you. Despite the man you chose to be, the monster you chose to become. I know I did because it would not have hurt me like it did to find out your crimes and sins. It would have been easier to hate you, and I had to file the police reports and let you pay for your crimes. I had to protect the innocent and anyone else from being hurt by you. Then I had to save myself and get away from you. I write this now for myself to process my grief, to bring to the light that two things can be true. You were both father and villian in my story. I can both my affirm my decision to leave you and miss you or what I wished you could have been. I can hate what you did; how you hurt me and those I love and I can grieve the hole your absence left in my heart.

And I hope you know that I meant what I said that final meeting

I forgive you.

“I know you were a troubled man
I know you never got the chance
To be yourself, to be your best
I hope that heaven’s given you
A second chance”– Demi Lovato

Lyric quotes

Tolerate it-Taylor Swift

Better man-Taylor Swift

Dear John- Taylor Swift

Father- Demo Lovato