Letter

So I have been reading / studying a book, “Longing for Daddy – Healing From the Pain of an Absent or Emotionally Distant Father” and I have to say it has challenged me and brought about emotions I thought I had dealt with long ago. God is really using this book to help heal a wound inside me that I have only masked for years. Tonight’s chapter told me to write a letter to my earthly father to express the feelings about the absence so here goes….
Billy,
I don’t even really know where or how to begin this. I don’t even really want to do this. I was only 10 years old when you choose to leave. It wasn’t a choice I made, but a choice you made. You knew cheating was wrong and you did it anyway. You put our family aside for your own selfish gains. You never once thought of what you were doing to me, or if you did it didn’t matter enough to make you stop. For so long I blamed myself for you leaving. I felt I had done something wrong and was the reason you chose to walk away. There were many nights and days that I just cried hoping you would come home. Hoping and wishing that something would make you love me again. It is hard to forget the hurt and sadness I felt when you made promise after promise to me and never followed through on them. Not only did you not follow through with them, but you didn’t even seem to see that it hurt me. When I went to see you and specifically asked you to allow just time for me and you, that wasn’t enough for you and instead you did again what you wanted. Then you made me feel as if I was a burden to you and that you really didn’t want to see me when you had the opportunity, but rather it was forced on you. You forgot birthdays, special occasions and even how to show me you loved me. Instead of loving me you created a new family and simply replaced the one that you didn’t want anymore. All I felt like at that point was a financial responsibility to you. Your new family got the dad that I longed for. The dad I desperately cried out for day after day. My heart was broken because the one person that I needed to love me walked away and never looked back. It was so hard growing up knowing that my dad chose to leave me. You chose to forget about me and didn’t even care that inside it was the worst feeling for me to experience. I lost out on so many memories I wanted with my dad. I was crushed, hurt, broken, angry, lonely, and scared. You never once helped me with it. You never once asked how you could make things better or fix things. Instead I just had to continue to deal with those emotions. I am an adult now and still carry a lot of those feelings inside. I try and tell myself that I am over you leaving, when in reality there are so many times that something happens and I am right back there as that scared 10 year old. You hurt me in a way that I cannot understand and never will, in a way that cannot be fixed by words or even actions now 20 years later. Abigail
God I pray that you continue to teach me how to heal from this. That you take me broken as I am and wrap me in your loving arms. Thank you for being my father and loving me unconditionally.