Remember when we would do everything together? When you taught me how to ride a bike? When we would go out to the pet store and look at all the kittens for sale? When we would hide under a blanket and pretend we were under attack? When it was bath time and you would pull out the tape recorder and we would sing and have silly talks about “Don Dannor”? Well I do. I remember you were my hero. I looked up to you because I was your little girl. You promised you’d always be with me, no matter what. You promised you’d stay. Then one day, I saw you leave. I watched you walk out the door and never come back. Mom told me that you were just going to your brothers for a few days and you’d be back. But you didn’t come back. I don’t understand how you could just pack up your things and leave. You never even gave a reason why you left. You just did. You didn’t talk to me for 2 years, you didn’t see me. It’s almost as if you forgot about me. But then you came back. Though this time, you found someone new. You found a new girlfriend (now wife) and you started living with her in a motel. She was young and i remember when you first introduced us she felt so uncomfortable around me (as if i was going to take up your time or she would have to share you). I may have been young but yes, I remember. It felt like you replaced me. How could you replace your little girl? You followed with brief visits over that summer and into fall (none overnight) with numerous scheduled visits turning into you calling to make some excuse for why you couldn’t make it or that you were “on your way” and never ended up arriving, leaving me standing on the balcony time and time again waiting to see your car pull in. Then you disappear again for another couple of years, all the while convincing mom to meet with you to “talk” because you wanted to “see me”, when you knew full well that was not your intention at all. Your intention was to take advantage of mom and try to convince her that you two would get back together in hopes that would get you a quick lay.(I know this for a fact from when i caught you at 350 Kerr street, after coming home early from school in moms bedroom and other times when i would come home and smell your distinct “preferred stock” cologne) All the while, going back to your then girlfriend as if nothing ever happened. But I’m not here to talk about your bad judgement calls with the opposite sex, or how you should stay committed to one person and be honest, if that is what you had promised to them. I’m writing you this to tell you how painful and traumatic it was to have you constantly come in and out of my life whenever it was convenient to you, or filled your guilty conscience as an absentee father. Long story short, you come back into my life another couple years later. I was angry at you but you just expected me to take you back automatically? Hell no. You made the conscious decision to leave, choose not to see me and you knew what pain I would go through, and you still went through with it. Because you left and continued to emotionally abuse mom, her depression worsened and for many years, everyday was a struggle to try and regain my childhood which was so blatantly taken for me. I even almost killed myself in my early teens with threatening to jump out of my 9 story bedroom window (which by the way, landed me in the psych ward for 3 weeks) because I felt like I wasn’t good enough. If you left and continued to leave without a reason and didn’t acknowledge my existence, in my mind, of course I wasn’t going to feel like I should be on this planet. We tried in later years to have some kind of a relationship and i tried to put the past behind me, i really did but overall, it just felt fake because even though it was over 20years earlier, you still couldn’t except responsibility for your actions and the tremendous hurt you caused me. Because of you, for many years i couldn’t have a normal relationship with a guy. I always went for the guys who could have no problem leaving, for the guys who didn’t treat me right because you never did. Whenever i managed to find one that treated me with the love i deserved, it would terrify me since i never wanted to feel vulnerable enough to take the chance of being hurt like that again. I have since dealt with my abandonment issues (with no help from you) and believe that through my earlier 20’s i finally found the confidence within myself to know that no man will determine MY happiness and that it can only come within me. Thanks Dad for showing me how i will never treat my children. I sincerely hope that one day you can truly come clean with all of the skeletons in your closet. I just hope for your sake that it’s not too late.

Your Daughter.