Dear Dad,
Dear Dad,
There’s so much I want to say to you and sometimes I struggle to find the words. But I want you to know how much I love you, how grateful I am to have you in my life and how proud I am to be your daughter.
As I’ve grown older, I’ve started to understand things I couldn’t have understood as a child. I look back now and realise how much of what I believed about you came from other people, rather than from having the chance to know you myself.
That’s one of the hardest parts of coming to terms with alienation. As children, why would we question what our mum told us? Why would we question her love or think that what we were hearing might hurt our relationship with you? We trusted the adults around us. We shouldn’t have had to work out what was true or feel that loving one parent meant betraying the other.
There’s still so much I’m trying to understand. I have questions about the past, but sometimes I’m scared to ask them. I feel sad about the years we lost and angry that we lost them at all. I wish there had been more ordinary days together. More conversations, more memories, more chances to just be your daughter without everything being so complicated.
But I’m so glad you kept trying. I’m so glad you never gave up on us.
I can’t fully understand how painful it must have been to keep reaching out and not have the relationship you wanted with your children. But I see your efforts differently now and I want you to know they mattered. Thank you for keeping the door open until we could find our own way back to you.
I just wish we were getting to know each other again under happier circumstances.
Get Mariam’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
With my little brother having cancer, it feels like we’re finding our way back to each other at the worst possible time. I’m grateful to have you close, but I wish we could enjoy this time without so much fear and sadness around us.
Seeing you with him breaks my heart. He’s my little brother, but he’s your son and I know you’re hurting. I might not always know how to ask how you are or what to say when I can see the pain on your face, but I notice it. I wish I could make things better for him and take some of that hurt away from you.
Sometimes I’m so caught up in my own fear for him that I might not say enough about yours. But I care about how you’re coping too, Dad. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay with me. I might cry with you or struggle to find anything helpful to say, but I want you to know you can talk to me.
It hurts knowing we can’t get the lost years back, especially now, when I wish more than ever that life would give us all some peace. There’s so much I still want us to do together. So many memories I want us to make, with my brother there beside us.
Through everything, I keep noticing the kind of person you are. You have every reason to be angry about the past, yet you still won’t let me say anything horrible about the people who hurt you and us. I don’t always understand how you manage that when I’m still working through my own feelings, but I respect you so much for it.
I hope, as we get to know each other again, you feel able to tell me your story too. I want to know about your life, the things you love, the memories you carry and the things we never got to talk about.
Thank you for loving us through the distance and the confusion. Thank you for trying when it must have felt hopeless. I’m so glad you never gave up.
I love you, Dad. I wish we’d had more time before all of this, but I’m grateful we have each other now.
Love,
Mariam
