Dear Psykedelic,
I have hurts in my life that while I have cast them aside yet I have really never dealt with them. I am a person who is pretty good at concealing my inner most thoughts and feelings. I have a natural tendency to keep all my emotions to myself while being expressive on my opinions that do not require my emotive side. I appear strong and stable on the surface but deep down, I can be a nervous wreck when someone asks me 'How are you feeling?' It is a facade you may say, but it has been a facade that I have been holding onto for a very long time and I am still fine. Yet, it has somewhat become a stumbling block in certain areas of my life.
The one thing that has made a significant impact in my life would be how my father momentarily appeared and disappeared for the good part of my life. As a child, I yearned for a chance to see my father when I was at home. Yet, I never did got the chance to do so. Often times, he would be out working or as so my mother wanted me to believe so. My father never did once gave me an allowance when I was in school. There was never any pocket money for food for recess or to buy some candy from the provision shop at my house's void deck. There was never anything of that.
I remember my father as a chauvinist, well somewhat of a chauvinist, who was not a provider and was never once a father figure in my life. I remember my father being a brute though to me, when I did really horrible things like calling him an invalid and useless in primary three in front of my maternal grandmother when he met with a motorbike accident and was forced to stay at home. I never once felt that I had a fatherly love.
My grades in primary school were decent but not excellent. My father never once showed any ounce of concern towards my grades. I couldn't care less about my grades either. In primary school, because I then did not know how to control my temper and emotions, I flared up at even the slightest disagreement and was not only a talking point among my peers but also a source of worry for my teachers. People shunned away from me; all the friends I made left me. One by one. I was alone. All I wanted was for my father to show me some attention. I wanted a fatherly love in my life. Yet, that never happened.
My parents separated when I was in primary six. I was discouraged and I began to keep my feelings to myself. I turned my anger towards my father into hate. I never really spoke to him as a son to a father. Never once. Never once did I even consider him as a helpline to my problems. I thought of myself first then my mother. Some nights, in my quiet room, I would cry myself to sleep, hoping that all these bad memories, if I can classify them as bad, will be left behind.
It was left behind. Eventually.
My father re-married to a woman whom he had been seeing for years while married to my mother. I look at his life today and I see a man devoted to his wife for reasons I do not wish to indulge myself in. I see a man who has a decent house, a decent car but two children who have unfortunately lost faith in him. I attribute the things I have in my life today, first to God's blessings and second to my mother's insistence on providing for and sacrifice for me and my sister.
Today, I do not have any form of hatred towards my father. It takes too much strength to do so. I just don't wish to spend time with him as I feel that there is no need to. I have let go my unhappiness and displeasure towards my father years ago but I have not forgiven him altogether.
Through the grace of God, you can forgive a person. On my human abilities, I am weak. But you are strong. Let me, through the grace of God, forgive my father for the things he has done in my life and allow me to see him as a father, albeit it just for name sake, rather than as a stranger.
Through the grace of God.
Sincerely,
aLbert
