**Special Note**

This letter was submitted a couple of months ago and I was finally able to share it today. I actually had another letter I was planning to post, but then decided to make a last minute change. When I emailed the writer last night to let her know that her letter would be on the site, she wrote back and said, “I’m thrilled! Ironic that my father will be visiting me for the first time in three years tomorrow.” I then asked her if she would be showing the letter to her father, and she responded, “Yes, I believe I will. It is too chilling that it will occur on the same day of his visit. It’s almost as if it were meant to be. Thank you for this opportunity.” She is going to use the letter as a stepping stone to ignite that unspoken conversation. Amazing!

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Dear Dad,

For almost eleven years, I have suppressed so many things I have wanted to say to you, and here is my chance to get the writing on the wall. Eleven years ago, I was 17 years old. My life was on the verge of beginning as an adult young woman. I was falling in love for the first time. I was halfway through my senior year of high school, with scholarships and college applications on the horizon. I was working as a go-for at the local attorney’s office and thought it may transpire into a career as a paralegal or one day, maybe a communications consultant for a big name company. I loved writing, I loved reading, I loved day dreaming. I was a girl with wings, about to fly.

And then, you came home that morning early from work and sat us down and told us you didn’t want to be a husband or a father anymore. It was my sister’s 13th birthday. It was six months before your 20 year wedding anniversary to our mom. It made absolutely no sense.

I remember standing there, in our warm living room, warmed by the stove fire that you always made the mornings before you left for work, and watched you shake your head, not a tear in your eye. Was this really the man that came home every day to have lunch with “his girlfriend”, our mother? The man who prayed with us every night at our family dinner table? The man who tucked us in on a nightly basis, even as teenagers? The man who loved us was now saying he no longer did.

Over the years, I have made my share of mistakes. I was dropped from high school a few weeks later because I missed my mid-term exams and so many days of school taking care of my mother. The scholarships were cancelled and I skated by, taking my remaining two credit classes at a local community college just to get a regular high school diploma. I married the boy I fell in love with at 17, just a few short months after you made your announcement to the family. We were kids playing house. My marriage ended with me turning 21 and realizing that my life would never be as I dreamed. So, I went on to try my hand, with Mom, as a business owner and lucked out getting a job as a traveling corporate trainer that took me to places I thought I would never see; Ireland, England, New Zealand, Australia. I actually traveled with Mom, and there were moments she would reminisce about you that reassured me that it all wasn’t a complete lie.

You married again and so far, it’s lasted. You say you are content and I am glad for that. She seems to be a good woman, although, it stings that this year you would have celebrated 30 years of marriage to my mother, had you not made the decision to leave. And by the way, if you ever bring up again the fact that mom threw dinner plates during an argument in your first year of marriage, I will stop whatever I’m doing and toss a plate to the floor to make my point that some things are never an excuse for abandoning your wife and daughters.

Although you are no longer the man I called Dad for 17 years of my life, you are still a man that has given me a lifetime of memories to tell my children about. Abriel and I love you so much. We miss you, but understand that you had to change. My prayer now, as a 28 year old woman, is that you’ve found some peace in your life. I won’t even say happiness, because happiness is so relative. But, peace. It’s funny because when I see silly reality TV shows or hear songs about fathers and daughters that have such a warm and fuzzy relationship, I usually start sobbing like a little girl because I don’t know what that’s like anymore. I often ask my current and love-of-my-life husband why my father’s love has changed so much. He just shakes his head, smiles and says, ”Your Dad loves you very much, honey.”

I really hope so, but until I am completely confident in that, I want you to know that my love has never changed for you.

Your oldest daughter,
Brandi’, age 28