My father was a monster. He beat my mother, me, and my sister. He abandoned two other families (that we know of so far). He was cruel in ways that will make my breath short and shallow even now, fifteen years after his death. The day he died, I cried for hours. Never before or since have I cried so hard. His death opened emotional floodgates in me. A sad song can now illicit a grave sense of sadness, whereas fifteen years ago, it would've been someone else's emotional art that I was observing. There was nothing personal about it. I don't mean to wax woe-etic. It took me years after his death to grieve and years more to understand what was done to him to turn him into the monster that raised me. His father was worse to him than anything I ever experienced. It's a wonder he didn't end up worse, frankly. Forgiveness is just not relying on him to make things better. It's not relying on someone else to heal the damage they've done.
My father was a monster. He beat my mother, me, and my sister. He abandoned two other families (that we know of so far). He was cruel in ways that will make my breath short and shallow even now, fifteen years after his death. The day he died, I cried for hours. Never before or since have I cried so hard. His death opened emotional floodgates in me. A sad song can now illicit a grave sense of sadness, whereas fifteen years ago, it would've been someone else's emotional art that I was observing. There was nothing personal about it. I don't mean to wax woe-etic. It took me years after his death to grieve and years more to understand what was done to him to turn him into the monster that raised me. His father was worse to him than anything I ever experienced. It's a wonder he didn't end up worse, frankly. Forgiveness is just not relying on him to make things better. It's not relying on someone else to heal the damage they've done.