A letter of Closure

Father.

I am finally in therapy. I know you offered to pay for therapy, back in the old country, but neither did I realize how badly I need therapy, nor did I believe you. Every offer of help you’ve made, every good thing, had an ulterior motive. From our trip to England and Wales, to show me how important–rather than fun–English is, to allowing me to study away from home.

In the past few weeks, even years, I’ve tried to remember what good times we had, just you and me, and very few come to mind: celebrating a birthday, starting to build the RC boat that you finished without me (it just happened, but that still hurts, and it’s something I’ve done to my stepson, which I am still nto happy about). What I do remember, are the many days and events where I wasn’t good enough: When you asked me to help you with changing a tire, and you yelled at me because I didn’t know what I was doing when I was still in elementary school. The screaming when I couldn’t spell a Latin word, and you mocked me for liking Star Trek becaue I most assuredly could spell «phaser» but not whatever Latin verb it was that time. The times where mom said to leave you alone after work, because you either had still more work to do or were too angry to be with us.

It was never clear to me what you expected, either because you couldn’t tell me, or because I couldn’t understand, and got scared of asking you. All I know is that I never lived up to your expectations, and that still haunts me. I still, less now than I used to, btu still more than I think I should, overthink problems, and am scared about making mistakes, messing up in a way that can’t be fixed easily. And I get frustrated, and angry with myself, when I don’t succeed as soon as I think you would want me to. I never learned how to deal with mistakes, because there never was any room for them. Never a way for me to fail safely, to learn how to deal with failing at something and then to begin again, with you around. There’s so many things that my wife taught me that I should’ve already known on an emotional level.

And I know that you never meant to hurt me with your words and dismissal of my emotions as unimportant. But that is not an excuse for what you did to me. I still wish that we could’ve talked, and gotten our collective messes together after mom died. But when she died, our family died, at least for me. And I’m still trying to forgive you for violating your promise of faithfulness to mom. I hope and pray that your own life has gotten better, that you’ve found the help that I’ve found, and that you will be able to forgive yourself for what happened in the past.

And I forgive you. I am finally ready to move on, and be own man in this world, ready to transcend how I was raised, and become a whole in body and spirit. I don’t know if this path of mine will include you again. My therapist says things can change in that regard, and I agree: the possibility is there. Just not soon.

Love,

Your son