Day 04 → Something you should forgive someone else for.
I like to think of myself as a forgiving person. I usually don't hold a grudge. I get mad, deal with it & then it’s over. However, there is one person that used to be in my life that I have had a hard time forgiving for the things they have done. It takes a lot for me to reach a point where I write someone off, but once they’ve crossed a line, I am done.
Lucky for me, day 4 of truths doesn’t insist that I forgive someone – just that I write about something I should forgive them for. I can do that. I can write about why I wrote this person off. I can talk about how they crossed that line & I can discuss why I have never forgotten what they did - even though I turned out far better without this person in my life.
The person I am referring to is my biological father. When I was a baby, he up & left me & my mom for another woman. I can't even get past that first sentence without feeling a twinge of anger. What kind of man does that to his wife & daughter?? I can't even imagine what my mom went through at that time & that is the one thing I have been unable to forgive him for - abandonment.
Through the years, he tried to be present in my life by sending me birthday/Christmas presents & making a few phone calls during the year. When I was in high school I went to visit a couple of times & again when I was in college. He never once attempted to come visit me or make it to any of my graduations or important events in my life.
During my visits to their beach house, I spent the majority of my time with his wife while he was out golfing or playing with her 2 kids. It was fun back then because I didn't really understand the "what" or the "why" of the visits but I later figured it out for myself. And that is one more thing I have been unable to forgive him for - neglect.
Without going into too much detail, when I was 26 years old I cut him completely out of my life & haven't looked back. I wrote a very long letter to him that expressed all my frustration & anger at him through the years & it felt good to get all that pent up anger out. I never heard back from him.
I often wonder if he feels regret for what he did to us....to me. I wonder if he feels it was worth it all these years to have given up having a relationship with his only child. I fear what I will feel (if anything) when he is gone & I never forgave him. Will I regret not speaking to him all these years!? Or even worse, how will I feel having forgiven him but never letting him know!?
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