Depression, psychological trauma, low self-esteem, self-loathing, somatization, low self-efficacy, pervasive interpersonal difficulties, feelings of contamination, worthlessness, shame, helplessness… these are my fathers legacy and my daughter’s burden.
My mother sent me this text months ago, when this was still fresh and we still had some contact.
“When you think of your dad you don’t see his face, the face of a man who has loved his children and his grandchildren…”
I do see my fathers face…almost every night, and I see myself grabbing it, ripping it to shreds, and tearing flesh from bone with my bare hands.
I know that sounds dark and disturbing to say that about your own father…but it is a reoccurring dream I have. The only thing that changes, is the location or how I do it, but the result is always the same..I reduce my father to a broken pile of flesh and bone, and I wake from it at 3:30 in the morning, my heart racing, not from fear, because it is not a nightmare, but from the adrenaline.
“Who has lived an exemplary life for 75 years and 1/2 years only to find himself in a situation has cost him almost everything.”
An exemplary life…I do not know about that, but by all accounts, to everyone who knew my father, before all of this came to light, he was a good man, a man I loved and honored since I was a child, a man I held in the absolute highest regard for my entire life.
He built a business from nothing but sweat and gave much to everyone. He was a deacon in his church and a member of the choir. I remember getting ready for church on Sundays and he would be practicing for some solo, he would be singing later that morning. He taught me about the value of hard work, of self-reliance, that I could build anything and he taught me how to stand up… in every way.
When I, as the oldest son, chose a different path, instead of becoming part of the business he had built, I never felt any sort of resentment from him, only pride.
Just writing this breaks my heart for the loss of the father I knew.
“…only to find himself in a situation…”
“..a situation”….?
Words, just like actions, are chosen by the writers, and my mothers reference to my daughter, as “a situation” my father finds himself in, tears at me deeply, every time I read it.
She is my only daughter, my first born child and she was your granddaughter.
She is not a situation!
The “situation” your husband, my father, finds himself in, is one of his own making, of his own design, built by his own hands, over years of hard work and effort in an attempt to take something beautiful and pure, and twist it, into some lechers plaything!
“…he has been majorly affected by his health issues…”
I have heard from my brother and my sister, that my father is claiming brain damage due to a stroke.
Brain damage is actually quite a common defense for rapist, pedophiles and child abusers.
…but brain damage or not my father knew right from wrong…and I know that to be true.
Otherwise, why would he threaten my daughter, why would he threaten suicide if she went to the police, or told me.
People who don’t know right from wrong…don’t try to hide their actions…criminals who know right from wrong, do.
“…this husband father grandfather could potentially die in prison..”
I have thought long and hard on this, and I believe that for someone to be judged on the single worse action in their life, would truly be beyond tragic.
Imagine, doing good and great things your entire life, only to be judged by your worse single action or mistake…what if you could erase just that one, …tabula rasa.
Unfortunately, nothing would change and we would still be in this situation, because my father committed many acts against my daughter, not one but over thirty-five physical acts….we would have to erase the last 6 years of his life.
No…there is only one “single action” that could ever be erased, that would solve the “situation” my father finds himself in… my daughter would have to be silenced, my daughter would have to live or die with this, in silence.
My daughter has many regrets for speaking up. She sees the pain we are all in, she feels the shame, as we know and discover what she has been through, what has been done to her and what she was forced to do. She feels the pain of the relationships that are in ruins, and the sides that have been chosen.
Sometimes, as horrible as it sounds I believe some of them wouldn’t care what my daughter was going through, as long as she just kept it a secret and didn’t put my father and my family in this “situation”.
The pain, loss, grief and guilt, I have felt since this started, is well beyond anything I have ever experienced in my life. So I understand when she has regrets about all of this.
But I would gladly take on a hundred times what I have been through and carry it alone if I have to. There is nothing I would not willingly endure to see my daughter whole again, to know that when she looks in the mirror, she sees herself through my eyes..
…to know that she sees beauty, strength, talent, hope and kindness.