How do you grieve a father who still walks the earth but left your soul behind?
I screamed into the darkness, longing for you to rescue me from my nightmares. I waited for you to soothe me but my bedroom door remained closed. I didn’t understand why you never wrapped your arms around me or why you left me behind.
I couldn’t accept I would never hear you tell me you loved me.
While passing strangers on the street, I saw you in their face. I wished they had turned and smiled. Men I had not met, but I was ready to have them take your place; to let me feel a father’s warmth for a moment. I hoped to discover they were you. To release me from the endless torment.
When I performed for others, I saw only you. I shone for you, but with a trick of the light, you were not there. You didn’t hear me deliver my lines or see me take my bow. You didn’t see me amaze, and you didn’t bathe in my gratification.
Perhaps you were conquering the world.
Perhaps you were whispering lies into the night air.
Whatever you did, you weren’t watching me.
Whatever you did, you left a persistent dull ache.
You failed to save me while he tore my clothes from my small body. Sorrow embraced me while my tears flowed. You failed to hear me plead for you to ease my agony. Shame covered me with the filth he sowed.
Weren’t you supposed to protect me? No child should have to fight so young in his life. Weren’t you supposed to rescue me? No child should have to know so much pain and strife.
I wondered if you sensed my suffering when he burned my innocence in the fire of desire and immorality; whether you heard me whispering your name, after you abandoned me to a world of chaos and abnormality.
I carry part of you inside me; I gaze at the world through your eyes. When I smile, it is you shining through. The man you were forms part of me. The man you have been swims in my blood. When I speak, what others hear is you.
I still can only hold you in my dreams on the darkest nights while I wonder what I did to cause you to disappear from my life; to distance yourself. Why I could tell you I loved you only by whispering into the darkness. I still ache to feel your loving embrace, and to hear your words of encouragement on those big days.
Dear Father, I wish you had told me how I had hurt you; what it was I did to shatter your heart. Dear Father, I wish you had told me why I had lost you; what it was I did to cause us to part.
Dear Father, you were the love that was always just over the next mountain.
—H, still whispering through the closed door
