Carus Pater

Dear Dad,

It's been a while, and for that too I am grateful... you don't need me to tell you that it's a little complicated between us right now, and has been for a long time. We don't talk, not since you told me that I'm not your daughter anymore, but I still think of you as my dad - I guess I always will. So here it is, the truth without glamour or bitterness; I'm not sure I like you, but I love you. I'm not sure I wish things were different, or that I can say truthfully that you have been a good father any more than I could say honestly that you have been a bad one...

You have always been, and I suspect always will be, entirely yourself. With time and reflection I can wholeheartedly say that I wouldn't want that to change.

I never knew your mind or understood how it worked, and that used to be a bad thing. The more I learned about your life, however, it stopped seeming so bad. I think it must be hard to be you in a lot of ways, I think that you never had much of a chance to be soft and by the time the opportunities came along you were no longer able to allow yourself to be. I think that, perhaps, you have never been able to give all of yourself to any person, and that my assumption I should be different was born of the streak of arrogance that we both share.

But I understand now; I understand that you tried. You tried so hard, and I didn't see it because it wasn't me that was standing in your way; it was something else. You fought the uphill battle for softness against people I never met, against sides of people we both knew - sides that I had never seen, and against things that happened far from my sight... and very often you failed. And I was too young, too chronically teenage, too sheltered to understand that those failures were not the result of apathy or weakness.

I don't think the bridge will be rebuilt; I think, in truth, the charred stumps will stay where they are because you cannot give love the way I need you to, and I can't receive the love you give without being wounded by it. But one day we might pass messages across the river and be glad to have seen each other. Wouldn't that be nice?

I learned from you that we, as people, owe each other very little in life and, as such, what we give and are given is priceless. So here it is; I am grateful you tried and I am sorry for things that came to pass to hurt you, even and especially those things that happened before I knew you. Definitely for those things that I am sure I had a hand in, never thinking you could be hurt. You were always invincible to me. Like the great oaks and pines we admired on walks and drives, I really did think that the world moved around you, not through you.

I will never stop being grateful to you for allowing me that illusion; it gave me security when I needed it, and though it didn't last it was priceless. I hope I can give someone that security, one day; I want to be an oak tree, too.

There is no way to identify how you have impacted me, no way to separate how you changed me in your presence versus how your absences shaped me. No way to point at what changes came from the good and which sprouted from the bad. There is no way to know who I would be if I had a different father because I would not exist. I would not be me if you had not been you, if mum had not been mum.

How do you begin to quantify the gratitude needed or the blame deserved when it comes to one half of your creation? That's what I would ask you if I still had your number... because I now know that you never had an ideal father (who does?). I understand that our complex relationship is a mirror image of one that came before.

I can't say I like you, but I wish I could. I can't say I understand you, and I hope I never do, but if I could give you one thing it would be a memory.

When I think of you, I remember a small, quiet flat with a broad, soft couch that needed to be propped up in the middle. I remember low lights and music, and I remember how you plaited my hair. I remember being happy and feeling safe, I remember thinking that it was good to have a dad who didn't talk to me like I couldn't understand anything just because I was little. I remember feeling safe and clean, and I remember that when I went to bed, you tucked me in and though the mattress was on the floor because the money for a new bed hadn't come in yet I was comfortable.

You hugged me and your arm felt thick as a tree trunk over the duvet, and I felt safe... and I spent my whole life chasing that simple feeling. I haven't quite found it again, dad, but I am grateful I know what to look for.

If I ever find it again, I'll let you know.

Love (always),

Sheree