THOUGHTS & MUSINGS

I Carry the Guilt of my Parents

The mixture of their guilt and my grief is bringing me down

Tomorrow it’s a month ago that my daughter finally came in contact with her father. In this month, many invisible forces started working; many emotions came into play.

A happy-bubble

My daughter’s father and her siblings envelop her with love, and every day her father calls her on video. Almost every day she texts with her sister, and they are developing a lovely bond.

From the moment she received his telephone number, my daughter has been in a happy-bubble. She wants to know everything about it him, and he wants to know everything about her. My daughter has even talked with her father’s wife, who needed a week or two to get over the initial shock. Not of my daughter being in her father’s life, but of me being on the horizon. Once she understood I’m not a threat, she relaxed.

It makes me smile when my daughter tells me things her father has told her, or she has heard from one of her siblings.

I’m over-the-moon happy for my daughter, but I’m on the outside of her happy-bubble, looking in.

Initial sadness

Despite my happiness for my daughter, sadness hit me in the first week, and after I spoke to him twice. He wasn’t angry with me, but regretted the decisions of my parents. He even said he should’ve fought harder for me, to which I said we were both kids back then, and we thought the adults knew better. I cried for lost times, for things that could’ve been. I cried because he thought he would go through life without ever meeting his child.

I grieved because of the lies my parents had told. On informing one of my cousins about the joyful news, she said one story that went around was that I had fallen pregnant after a one-night stand. Another cousin relayed the words of my father: my then-boyfriend wasn’t good enough for me.

Grief and guilt

My grief is deepening, and I cry at impossible times as thoughts enter my head unexpectedly. I think of things he has said in our handful of conversations. That he was bitter for a long time. That he’s not angry with me anymore. That he regrets what my parents had done. That he had looked for me, but could never find me.

And ever so slowly, guilt started mixing with the grief.

In those letters to the lawyer, my parents wrote I had agreed with them in never wanting to see my then-boyfriend again. I know this is not true. If it was, would I have thought for 38 years he had abandoned me? Would I have looked for him the moment I had a way to (mainframe computer in the personnel office once I joined the army)? Then why do I feel guilt for those words?

My parents were strict, and I grew up knowing their word was law. Still, I went against them when they mentioned adoption, but why didn’t I stand up to them when they said there is to be no contact? Thinking about this long and hard, I think they never said that. Somehow, I think they made me believe he had abandoned me. It was convenient for them if I believed that, because then I wouldn’t try to get in contact with him. Which I didn’t. And now I wish I had.

There are more of these kinds of thoughts, and every time they cross my mind, the tears come. They come because I am grieving, but also because of the guilt.

My parents’ guilt.

I feel guilty on my parents’ behalf. I literally feel their guilt weighing on my shoulders. I think of my mom who never wanted to talk about what happened when I fell pregnant and believe this was because she regretted their actions. She never was one to say sorry. And I think of my father, who had admitted they had made mistakes. No apology, only that.

Their guilt is theirs

I think part of feeling the mixture of their guilt and my grief is because I can’t ask either of them anything anymore. I will never have my questions answered. That hurts. It hurts so much.

I have pushed most of what happened back then to the dark recesses of my mind. So much is not clear to me anymore. Things that had been said and done.

My belief was he had abandoned me, which made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. This is a thread throughout my life.

Because I buried many memories, I doubt myself. Doubt makes me wonder if I should feel guilt, even though I know I shouldn’t.

I know there’s a monkey on my shoulder (words of the coach) pushing me to feel the guilt, but I need to give the guilt back. It’s my parents’, not mine. It’s their guilt weighing heavily on my shoulders now, but I need to tell that monkey to take a hike. Easier said than done.

I want to shake this feeling that I need to apologize for what my parents had done…

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