Summary

The author is deeply grieving the loss of her father, exacerbated by the fact that she was informed of his death over a year after it occurred and was excluded from the chance to say goodbye or participate in mourning rituals with her family.

Abstract

The author has discovered that her father passed away more than a year ago, a fact that was intentionally withheld from her. Despite being the only daughter, she was not given the opportunity to bid farewell or grieve with her family, which included her three half-brothers and other relatives. This exclusion has compounded her grief, as it reflects a lifelong pattern of being undervalued by her father and his side of the family. The author recounts a history of neglect and rejection by her father, who left when she was young, rarely made an effort to be part of her life, and even threatened family members with ex-communication if they contacted her. Her grief is not only for the loss of her father but also for the relationship that never was, and the realization that she held no significance in his life. The lack of acknowledgment of her loss by others, including friends, has left her with a sense of isolation in her mourning.

Opinions

The author feels that if she had been born male, she might have been treated differently by her father and informed of his illness and death in a timely manner.
She believes that her father's family, who did not inform her of her father's death, does not consider her part of the family.
The author perceives her father's actions as a clear indication that he did not love her, which is supported by his continuous absence and disinterest in her life.
She is critical of her father for not making an effort to be present in her life, despite her attempts to connect with him, including attending his activities and caring for his other children.
The author feels that her father's family, particularly his third wife, viewed her as a

Condolences on your loss

I’ve just found out that my father is dead. I’m quite sad. It’s always so terribly sad when family members die. I should know, I’m the queen of casserole making, flowers, calls to check in, hug sending, etc.

But I’m so much sadder than you might expect. Devastated actually.

You see he died over a year ago. And no-one thought to tell me. Or rather they thought about it, but decided not to — 10 people conspired not to tell me. Or maybe telling me, his only daughter, somehow got lost in the mix. After all, there’s a lot to do when someone’s dying/dead.

It might not have been so, if I’d have had a penis. His three sons (my half brothers) were told not only of his death, but of his impending doom and got the chance to say their last goodbyes. Of course, one of them refused to come home from Asia — he couldn’t be bothered. Another is a continuous hard-drug user so that interaction would have been incredibly limited. So it was really the oldest brother that got the most of the time. And my father’s sister and other relatives.

So here I sit with my grief. But my grief is so much more compounded by the fact that I was considered of so little importance at every juncture of my father’s life; I wasn’t told of his impending doom or, given my chance to say the things that I needed to say. Worse still, I never got to say my goodbyes or celebrate his life or my place in it with his friends and my family — as I’ve seen my friends and husband do for their parents. The people who kept his passing a secret were not ‘my’ family. They belonged to each other. I was the outcast whose only crime was that belonged to another mother.

Whilst my friends on FaceBook were outraged that my claim to any legacy had expired three weeks before I was told, not a single friend has expressed condolences for my loss.

No casseroles, no calls, no flowers, no hugs. It’s as if my loss doesn’t matter, doesn’t count, doesn’t exist, because my father didn’t love me.

Except it did and it does.

I can’t be the only one this has ever happened to, can I? You see my father left before I was 2 and I didn’t see him from the age of three until I was 15, at my brother’s wedding. There were no birthday presents, no custody visits, no support payments, no phone calls, nothing. He’d not tried to find me — not once. He’d had other children by then. His next wife (No.3), especially didn’t like me. I was a threat to her neat little family. How do I know? I’ve seen letters from her to another relative stating as much.

I had such high hopes after meeting him again. I ice-skated for 6 hours every Saturday morning just 5-10 mins from where he lived. And I’d told him as much when I’d seen him at the wedding. I asked him to come visit me. I was so excited to see him again. Every Saturday for a year, I watched and waited for him to turn up. He never did. You’d have thought my hope might have died after that.

But I’m a glutton for punishment. I kept hoping that he’d be the father I so desperately wanted. Once I got my driver’s licence, I’d drive to his place to see if I could win favour. I tried my hardest — I’d attend his baseball games, mind his other children, make their birthday cakes, etc. Didn’t seem to matter. It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.

We kept loosely in touch by phone over the years, until I turned up on his doorstep as a surprise to introduce him to his first granddaughter — a beautiful child with golden blond curls, only to find out he’d moved interstate 6 months earlier with no forwarding address and forgotten to tell me. I mean who does that? Surely, it was just an oversight. After all, there’s a lot of things to organise when you move house. It must have just slipped everyone’s mind. It happens to other people, doesn’t it?

But stupidly I’d kept hoping despite trying to harden my heart to keep it from breaking. When his sister, my Aunty, ‘found’ me 10 years later, I thought it might be the start of a real family relationship, but no. Apparently he’d threatened her with family ex-communication if she came near me again. That really hurt. I didn’t understand why he hated me so much. I just knew he did. That almost broke me.

You’d think maybe I was smart enough to be done by then, but no. As he grew older, I hoped and hoped that maybe he’d have an epiphany about what he’d missed out on and seek to make amends before he died (after all, I’m one of the easiest people on the internet to find). Or write me a letter from his deathbed pleading for forgiveness and how much I’d really meant to him and how sorry he was he didn’t get to play more of a role in my life or his grandchildren’s.

But none of that happened. And now he’s gone and I’m left with the dashed hopes of that little girl, the little girl who waited desperately for him to show up. The little girl who just wanted her daddy to love her. I grieve what might have been, what could have been, what should have been. After all, everyone always says “there’s no love stronger than a parent’s for their child” except apparently that doesn’t apply to me or so it would seem. But then I guess people lie. Hell I don’t even know where he’s buried or maybe he had ashes that were sprinkled.

I grieve what might have been, what could have been, what should have been.

So, here I sit — no longer with any hope — the time for receiving any final letters is well past and to hope now would be pointless and frankly delusional. I sit mourning the death of my father who taught me to name all the fish in the fish book when I was a little girl and bought me an ice cream cake for my 3rd (and final birthday with him). I need to accept my lack of value to a parent who threw their only daughter onto a scrapheap and walked away.

No flowers, no calls, no hugs, no casseroles and no condolences.

Just tears and emptiness.