A Letter To My Father

“Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I’m glad for that.” ― Ally Condie

“The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.”― J.D. Salinger

Warning: This letter is not for the faint-hearted people. Kindly read this at your own discretion and be empathetic towards the author.

Dearest Father,

The way you have always tried to bring me down because I argued with you and couldn’t take your shit tells me everything about your damaged childhood. Now you are unhappy with me being an author because that doesn’t get me a fat cheque. So what? If I am not earning and it disappoints you because your ego is hurt and you see me as a loser.

If you would stand on the same road looking at me from my own eyes you would find a woman who has fought many battles all alone without shedding any tears on your shoulder. You would see a woman who is still fighting and raising herself back to life along with others. You would see a woman who likes to sit with others in pain rather than happiness, and they know her worth unlike you.

All my life I have heard you abusing my mother and treating her like a piece of trash and you want the respect out of her when she has turned 61. I am sorry but now she knows the cunning ways of living her own life without your mercy. She detests you. I am proud of her for detesting you. Sometimes when I sit alone in my room I realize how courageous I have become because of a nerd like you living with me under the same roof.

Do you know why? Because you have abused and degraded me up to the extent that I don’t see anything except resilience in me. The way you told me that someday I would die or kill myself because I have no money tells me a lot about your thoughts. Maybe you are not willing enough to face the harsh reality of life. That’s why your wife keeps on telling me that if she dies before you, you would end up committing suicide too.

This is like icing on the cake because this kind of utterly disrespectful statement comes from you for me when you know I have survived everything, and I don’t get scared with the thought of death. So, please get a life and don’t preach anything because I have been through a lot. Your ridiculousness has no bound, and you have no shame in abusing your family members.

With time I am learning to grow bolder and stronger. You have lost respect in my eyes long ago, and if ever I adopt a kid, I don’t think I will tell that kid the tales of my childhood because I don’t want to scare the hell out of him. You have taught me what it means to be more compassionate and humble because I have never received it in my abode.

Thank you for teaching me something that would stay with me lifelong more than money and other materialistic things. What I didn’t get at home, I started giving it back at a very young age. I know nobody has written you emails telling you that your words saved them from committing suicide, but they have written to me, and this is my proud moment. You cannot snatch it away from me just because you are a damaged man.

Did I ever tell you that my damaged self comes from you? Did I ever treat you the same way you have treated me all my life? Did I ever spit in your food when you were having it? Did I ever leave you at home dying knowing you were extremely ill? But you have crossed all limits with me in showing me what kind of pathetic father you are, and this instigates me enough to remove your name from all my certificates.

You make me doubt all the fathers I have ever come across and yet to meet in this life. You make me sick, and it’s not about the struggles I fear the most, it’s you whom I slowly and steadily discard in my mind from the status of the father. I am not proud that you are my father. I cannot even stand you in the same room. I know you are scared of me, but I pity you.

I truly wish that in the next birth if I am ever coming back as a human I don’t cross my path with yours. I am done with you. I wouldn’t want to see you anywhere because for me you died the day you started cursing me for being born when I didn’t tell you to have unprotected sex.

Signing off as it’s enough for me to kill you in words today.

“I think that the best thing we can do for our children is to allow them to do things for themselves, allow them to be strong, allow them to experience life on their own terms, allow them to take the subway… let them be better people, let them believe more in themselves.”― C. JoyBell C.

Gurpreet Dhariwal is the author of Two Poetry Books. Her books are available on Amazon, Flipkart and BlueRose. Connect with Gurpreet at www.gurpreetdhariwal.com