After losing my mother over 30 years ago, my father passed away just a few months ago. We had a distant relationship, but that was the norm for us and in some respect we were both content with it. With his passing, I felt it cathartic to write him an Ode (embed below). I even stood up at his funeral and recited it as if I were reading it directly to him. I was. You see, I had been struggling for years to complete a previous poem I wrote entitled"The Two-Minute Rant". It was more of a biopic and filled with emotions that spoke of the turmoil I experienced as a child. Up until Sept. 2021, I had over 15 revised versions and could not settle on one. And after 15 years of waiting, I was finally approached by a publisher and asked to submit it along with a chapbook. I desperately wanted the poem published. It was my most sentimental piece and some of my best writing... problem was... I could never get the final version quite "right". I became so polarized with finishing it, that I ended up having writer's block, and had to eventually retract it.
One of the last iterations of the poem was to move it from first person POV to third person POV as if writing an anonymous letter from a daughter to a father who had emotionally and sexually abused her; that style felt unauthentic. That's when it dawned on me that the original poem was not just a narrative, it was my story...and although I had forgiven my father multiple times over, the scars would never heal. Several weeks before he passed away, I asked him a question I should have asked 40 years ago but was too gripped by fear, resentment, and confusion that I could never face him to ask. We were communicating by text at the time. I won't share the context here, but when I finished the text I remembered to tell him that I loved him. He declined to respond (for what reason is unknown) then 4 weeks later, had apparently checked himself into the hospital after feeling ill. He never checked out. Oct. 29, 2021 was the day he took his last breath on earth.
The Brightness
Timing means everything! The Two Minute Rant was never meant for him, never meant to be published in anything less than its authentic version. But more importantly, it was for me! It was simply a journal of emotions written to articulate those words I never found the courage to say. See the woman who wrote the poem was the little girl stuck at 15. She can finally grow up now that her scars have air to heal.
Death is funny that way, almost like boxers in a boxing match. A win by TKO is a win, but only by default. Anything taken out by a technicality requires little effort. That's how I felt. I always wanted to voice those hurts to him, but he was TKO'd before I got the chance. So I really never had to face that one last fear I've been embracing all these years. I had spent all of my adulthood ashamed, traumatized and broken, trying to work through the pain, just to have it all suddenly fade away the very moment he left this earth. I mourn my father in ways I can't explain, I love him unconditionally, but in spite of a TKO I am no longer in bondage.
As I look back over these events, I'm going to take my advocacy flag and fly it for childhood trauma and abuse, particularly sexual molestation. I'd like to do more with grown-up children that continue to struggle with self-identify, self-esteem and relationship issues directly correlated to childhood abuse.
Please let me know if you or someone you may know, may be in need of support!
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