Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Dear Daughter Amy
Sometimes when you decide not to make a choice, it has the same effect as if you’d made a choice. (Not making a decision is the same as making a decision). It’s beginning to feel like you’ve done that. It feels like you’ve made a decision to put me in the background, and keep me there. It makes me very sad and feels very bad to acknowledge that, but in the light of the evidence, it’s hard for me to deny it anymore, and very unhealthy for me to try to live in that world alone.
Except for your last card about your teeth, your letters have seemed deliberately sterile and unaffectionate
For a few years, I’ve carried with me, and lived for, the memory of a special daughter and a special relationship. For whatever reasons, you have decided to bail out of that memory and I’m left standing with the remnants of it on the floor around my feet. My friends in Illinois, Cali, and elsewhere have been gently telling me that my memories are just memories and that the relationship is not real anymore, and I have been telling them that they’re wrong. The evidence supports their statements, so I am at another juncture at which I must examine the facts, the same way you have.
I will never close you out of my life or my love. I want you to be my daughter, and I want you to love me……….even with a fraction of the love I have for you. I have to get on with my life, and I can’t do it by waiting for you at some now-lonely place in our once happy past. If you decide that you want a father who loves you, then call me, write me, or find another way to communicate with me. If you don’t want a father who loves you, I will know that from your actions if there are no words from you which say so.
That’s all I can write at this time. I’ll save this and will mail it to you later, but I’m going to copy it and post it with some little graphic.
I love you,
Your Daddy
Thanksgiving has come and gone again. I remember the Thanksgivings at our house, with all of your mother’s relatives coming over for a feed. .
I thought about you at Thanksgiving, remembering that I spent 2 Thanksgivings alone in hospitals, and once had Thanksgiving dinner alone at the Full Moon restaurant on Highway 41 in North Chicago. When someone you love dumps you, you’ll begin to understand how I felt then, and how I feel now.
Christmas is looming large. I got our Christmas things out of our storage unit. Your mother still has Christmas ornaments which have been in my family for a long time. Please take care of them. Do you still put the little Christmas village out? She hated the little village when I started buying the components, just like she hated it when I put lights outside the house. I did it anyway because I had rights too. Perhaps you remember how she would decide to throw our things away?
I still have the tree you gave me. That tree meant so much to me when you gave it to me, and it still does. I knew that you had to spend most of your limited money on it, but you did anyway, so that I could have a tree. I still have the gift tag you wrote. It’s in the Jeep, which is in need of repair. I treasure everything about you.
I’m not angry anymore, just disgusted. I don’t have anything for her except disgust and revulsion, and I pray when I go to sleep, that her craziness and neurotic behavior is not rubbing off on you.
Your mother and her sister are the products of drug-addicted parents and the unrealistic expectations of a materialistic Midwest town. It’s not entirely their fault that they are what they have become………..
I’m getting sad now, so I’ll stop here. I will finish this and send it you soon. I hope that you’ve been able to view my blog. I’m trying to make it interesting, and still trying to communicate with you. Please click the “Cows with Guns” link…………it’s very funny………illustrated by a 23 year old student from Norway.. The song was written and sung by a guy from Seattle, and the trumpets and chorus are provided by the Mariachis at his favourite Mexican restaurant!
I hope that you had a good Thanksgiving, and that you are happy. I remember you every day. I will help you when I can………..there is much you don’t know about my situation.
Love,
Daddy
