Dear Dad

Dear Dad, I would like to meet with you to thank you for all you did for me. That I can express my appreciation and love makes this a big day, after all that we went through and I continued to go through after you passed away just before Christmas.. Until this week, it never occurred to me these last six months that my grief over you and our past, and what I felt I did not have from you was the cause of my continuing internal hardships. My divorce was final more than three years ago and I only feel warmth and good memories from my marriage now, so I knew that was not the problem. To have you resurface in my feelings now and the resolution that has made my heart and entire existence much lighter, is a miracle I want to share with you.
I thank you for being so funny, and witty. I knew you had vast wisdom and the priest who offered the eulogy at your funeral mentioned it too. He called you a 'great man' and i knew what he meant. We all admired your tenacious way of holding and expressing your own views of what would make the world and our family, successful. Never mind it did not work that well and caused incredible grief and separation, I still know you did what you felt was best and never wavered from that cause. From you I learned to be resolute and very tenacious myself, and these days in uncovering my real true inner being, this quality is invaluable.
I really love the way you looked after us all, making sure every penny was appropriately used and even though you forgot we all had needs and preferences too, you did look after us. You came home every night, had dinner with us every night and sat in the same chair to read your paper. You always provided Mom with grocery money and we never doubted there would be anything different. Not like the reality I entered upon my own marriage; somehow I chose the exact opposite and so I say from experience that I now know how dedicated you were to keeping the family stable.
Thank you for encouraging me to work in the arts that I loved and letting me know you did think I had talent. Thank you for walking me to my appointments because we didn't have a car, at least half an hour and then that long, long flight of stairs up the hill to the convent. Thank you for encouraging me to get my first job even though you then proceeded to convince me I hated it. I now know, you felt anxious at letting me go and that some kind of strange love moved you to influence me to get myself fired. That incident fueled more of many similar ones throughout my life, but I now fully appreciate where you were coming from. I know that the horrors you put me and the others through did come from a will to have things good and perfect. They say, the thought is what counts and I feel the truth of that about us, now. I would call you an angry man, but also a loving man.
Today, I share with you the good, the bad and the ugly. But you notice, the good is first on the list...I have been mired in the other two for a long time. And they still exist and maybe will for a while yet. I feel I cannot forget easily, but this is a healing process. My horoscope for today said I cannot go from A to B in an instant, and to work with all that needs to be accepted. How appropriate for how things are within me.
Wherever you are now, I believe you know how I feel, and that you hear me when I say I love you Dad. Happy Father's Day!