I think of all the daughters and fathers who have been spilt up and torn apart from one another through divorce, marriage, fear, or separation, wedlock, revenge or selfishness, and the supposed “best thing” for all involved. Physically separated, no forwarding addresses, forever off the ringer phones, no voices, or photographs and no one in the new circumstance to preserve a memory or an inkling of the person.
I wonder if I was lucky that I did not have to experience that trauma as a child or ironically, maybe I am not so lucky because what I had with my father as a child; that was all I was ever going to have.
There is no reunion, no reconciliation, no chasing second chances, no persisting or demands, or wrong numbers, failed understanding, passive-aggressive emails, cut off voicemails. There is no false hope that we will meet again.
The best thing though is that I would have never had this kind of relationship with my father anyway we were always together and we were so close. In my brief time with him, I never once was left doubting his love and dedication to me. Our time was a lifetime in itself. Some have many decades and years and never are so close.
Now I have been alive longer than the amount of years I was able to spend with him.
Worst of all is that I have nothing and there is no future and that is never going to change; and the only exception (if I let myself imagine) may only come when my remains leave this earthly plain.
I think of all the daughters and fathers whom never had a chance and that I did have what some will never experience; this is why it is easier to make it through all the times that I miss him. The infinite moments that I will never allow to rest despite the poison of loss and trauma, it is necessary for me if I want to love and remember him as I do.