The Void

It has been a month since I sent off my letter to my father. And still my email and mail boxes stand empty.

While chatting with my sister tonight I asked her if she had received any correspondence from him. She said no. And she had sent off a letter over a month ago too. Her last words were: "So he's disappeared again." Just matter of fact. Which is sad but true.

Our father may have been present physically, but emotionally, he disappeared long ago. It was like trying to love a ghost. And you can only work so hard and put so much of yourself out there before you break. I reached my breaking point three years ago. Since then, while my heart mended ever so slowly, I have only heard from him once. And that was in the first year of our estrangement. He sent my sister and me Christmas cards with the words: 'I love you and I am still your father.' As I read those words, they infuriated me. How dare he presume that he could hold that title over my head? What love? Love would have sacrificed himself and spent hours searching the internet trying to locate me. Just as I have spent hours trying to find him. Love would have never let go of his daughter in the first place. Love would have never given up. Love would have kept trying to woo his daughter's heart back. Love would have cared enough to be involved.

And so I sit here on Valentine's Day Eve thinking back to the last Valentine's I spent with him. Instead of writing a Valentine's Day missive, I was helping him with his resume. Questioning him on his career habits. Questioning him on his life habits. And as I heard the response he so transparently gave, I sat in stunned disbelief as I listened to the death knell of my family.

Divorce rips your family apart. Even as a 25-year old adult this divorce shredded my heart. I felt like my whole life growing up had been one big fat lie. I remember that I used to feel so secure in the fact that my parents still held hands even after 20+ years of marriage. I vividly recall wanting my own marriage to be that way. To find out it was all a farce, made me feel so lost.

It made me question if I could really have a marriage that thrived. Rather than one that lay gasping for its last breath in the space between us. Then my beloved husband reminded me that he was not like my father. We would be different. We would make it. We would be committed to being committed. We would love fiercely and not ever let go of each other.

I wish my father could have been the same as my husband. I wish he could have loved me fiercely and never let go. My parents' marriage may have ended, but did my father-daughter relationship have to end with it?

I feel like he has moved on and swept me under the rug. Forgotten.

And so I sit here on Valentine's Day Eve with a void in my life. I opened up my heart expectantly but now all I hear is the whooshing sound of hope being extinguished.