He'll Never Know

In 1996 my older sister, my hero, wrote me a letter explaining how our father had molested her until she was 12. I cried. I wanted to kill him with my bare hands... and enjoy it.

I had very little to do with my father after the age of four, when my parents divorced after multiple instances of adultery on my father's part. There was the odd visit here and there, but not because he instigated the connection. I think my mother just needed a break from being the single parent of three young girls. My mother made all the arrangements. These scattered visits had limited impact on how I felt about my father.

There was the time he took us to Dairy Queen for Dilly Bars. There was the time my stepmother made fun of me for being overweight and my dad defended me. There was the awkward moment when he let my teenage cousin (not by blood) sit on his lap to "drive" his van. There was the time I realized that my stepmother and I shared a birth date... and he never called or sent me a card.

My childhood, from the age of four, consisted of my mother working multiple jobs and going to college and my older sister taking the parental role. She was only nine. I had no idea this was weird. I had no idea how unjust this was. My sister was my everything. If my belly was full, it was because of her. If I got to school on time, it was because of her. If I felt safe in a thunderstorm, it was because of her.

As the years passed, I began to think about romance. I had had crushes on both boys and girls. By the time I was fourteen I had lost my virginity, thinking I was in love. By the time I was eighteen I had been in too many unhealthy sexual relationships. I didn't know it was a pattern. I had low self-esteem.

I had unhealthy relationships with sex, food, trust, and myself. I was not wise enough to put it all together, in large part, due to the fact that I had almost no memories of interacting with my father. They were deeply suppressed. The link seems so obvious now.

You see, I grew to UNthink about my father... until my sister's letter.

For nearly a decade after that letter, I lived in mental and emotional turmoil. I hated my father. I wanted him dead. I wanted to know why. I wanted help. I put myself and my partners through intimacy hell. I was hot and cold and confident and a wreck. Therapy helped... a bit. I'm still a bit of a mess to this day.

Then, in 2005, my father had a massive heart attack. My stepmother called me to let me know I should come and say goodbye. The end was close. I was driving across the state when I got the call. I was remarkably close to the exit leading to my birth town, and the town where my father was currently living... or, rather, where my father was currently dying.

However, the end wasn't close at all. My father lived eleven more years. I will say that his time in the hospital experiencing every possible medical problem, including losing his legs, changed him. Not at first though. He was in the ICU for five and a half months. That's a lot of thinking time. And, in a burst of divine compassion, I had quit my job and moved in with my step mother to help care for my father. I spent every day in his room, by his side, until I was relieved from duty when my step mother arrived after work. You see, she HAD to keep working. My father had driven them to bankruptcy for the third time. Money was tight. And now there would be mountains of medical bills.

One unremarkable day, about three months in, an ICU nurse brought the family together. She said that my father told her he wanted to die. This nurse thought we should honor his wishes. No. That is not at all what we should do. He was still alive. He was not at death's door.

I stormed to my father's room and told him what the nurse had said. He listened silently. I was angry. I told him that with everything he had done he still had people who cared about him. I told him that he had no idea what tomorrow might bring. I told him that my sister had forgiven him and he was not allowed to be selfish. I told him that the doctors would be coming in soon and he'd have a choice to make.

The doctors came. One asked him if he wanted to live. My father said nothing. I yelled, "That's your f***ing cue, dad!" Somewhat in shock, the doctor asked again. The tears streamed slowly down my father's cheeks. In a hoarse voice he said, "Yes."

From that day, from that very moment, he was a different person. This child molester, compulsive gambler, compulsive adulterer became a thoughtful human being. Once out of the hospital and wheelchair-bound, he was no longer able to offend. But he also actively attempted to be better.

Having gone through this ordeal with my all but absent father, having learned about his crimes against my sister, having witnessed before my very eyes his near complete transformation into a decent person, I still could not resolve my feelings.

At no point during his hospital stay did he say he was sorry. I wasn't looking for a rehashing of the details of the damage he perpetrated. I was simply looking for acknowledgement and remorse. But he was a coward.

My father died 11 years after his heart attack. We never got close. I never got that apology. But what I did get was some sort of deeper and unrelated gift. I went to my father and cared for him. I somehow overcame my hatred and saw him as a being in pain.

I was given a portion of his ashes. They lie in heart-shaped stainless steel. Engraved on the outside... "He'll never know how much he accidentally taught me."