Two Years: Message to My Father

It could’ve been just hours ago. Sitting vigil, waiting with you so you need not die alone. Your time.

The brother and I wished you peace. 

That little girl who lost her daddy so many years ago, she leaned in whispering wishes of joy wherever you travel.

Now? Struggling. Striving. And sometimes surrendering  – to the anger, mistrust, loneliness, hurt, and sorrow. Self-reflection painful and disheartening: your child most certainly.

I want to be free of the fears infecting these scars. No thank you, I do not want to “sit with” the pain. It has been fifty years of never being enough. No, I can’t take care of my mother and brother I like you made me promise decades ago. Can’t repair their roads, or mine, though have tried. They neither seek nor heed my counsel. My value appears to exist only in usefulness to their needs. A painful, oft silenced truth. Always the pragmatic clan.

Here. Never enough, never worthy. Lesson learned: unconditional love is not.

Two years, it could’ve been tonight.