{Sometimes in life you just need to be quiet, and sometimes you need to not speak and just listen, but sometimes you need to speak up and 'say what you need to say'. Following is the letter I would have written to my biological dad, saying what I needed to say to him, but never got the opportunity...Other letters will be posted at the bottom.}
Dear Dad,
Actually, I probably shouldn't have started a letter to you with 'Dear Dad', seeing as I never met you or anything. But somehow...and it's a funny kind of thing...I feel like I've always known you. That's probably because as a little girl everybody, most of the time in whispers, used to say: "She looks just like her father, doesn't she?" I hoped you were handsome! Otherwise they might have been insulting me and I didn't catch on! LOL
I need to tell you, first off, that I'm not angry with you that we never got to meet. In fact, if it hadn't been for you, or at least the THOUGHT of you being somewhere out there, I might not have made it through my childhood in as good of shape emotionally as I did! Although...when I used to see Michael Landon {Little Joe, on Bonanza}, or Elvis Presley, I used to imagine that they were my father. What can I say...I was a little kid! ^_^
It was very rough being raised by Ma, with all of the issues that swirled around her life all the time. I'm sure you must have heard. But I would be lying if I didn't say that I was, and to a great extent, still am, disappointed at the fact that you apparently didn't feel it was necessary for you to be around at least when I was born,....
....and then to stay available to me growing up, if not be in my life on some sort of regular basis.
It would have been nice to have your phone number and be able to have called you when I unfortunately was being abused by different people, or when I fell in love for the first time and got my heart terribly broken.
I would love to have had your input on the major decisions I had to make in my life, and for you to have met my husband, Jeff. He's a great man and an even better person. He takes good care of me.I'm sad we couldn't have had a conversation about him and I the day I got married. I used to imagine us on that day, in the back room somewhere, right before we went down the aisle, with you asking me: "Do you really love him?" and me smiling at you and saying something like: "Don't worry Dad! He loves me!"
Did you ever wonder about me over the years?! Did you try to contact Ma?! I know it might have been hard if you did because....WHEW!....we moved around a lot!! Did you ever get a picture of me?! Ma says she sent one to a friend of yours when I was born, but she says she never heard from you after that, so she didn't know whether you got it or not.
I don't want to start talking about Ma. Even though there sure is a lot of questions I have about you and her that I wish I could find out the answers to! Like, did you love her?! Did you ever see her when she was in the later stages of her pregnancy with me?! Did you really leave her as soon as you found out that she was pregnant?! Probably none of my business. I can respect that. But it still doesn't stop me from wondering. :-)
I am in my 50s now. No longer a little kid waiting on the edge of the driveway, looking at every driver that passes by in a car and wondering: "Is that my father?"
Your wife sent me pictures of you some years back. You were handsome. Not Elvis or Little Joe, ^_^ but pretty good-looking for an average guy! :-) I cried the first time I saw your picture because it was the first time I ever looked into anyone's face and saw myself so clearly there! I could see my cheek bones, and my smile. Even the little moles you had on your face were just like mine! WOW! Aren't genes something?!
I know you had 2 kids with your wife before I was conceived, and 2 after you went back to her. Boy, girl and boy, girl. I saw the picture of your youngest daughter, my sister...*strange to say*. She looks like me too! I've never met or even talked to any of them, but I hope to do that one day. They're still trying to work some things out about me. Like why you never even told them that you had another daughter. I guess I'm trying to work that out myself. I've gone through a lot emotionally over the years just trying to work that out! I still don't have all of the answers, but I'm no longer in pain about it either. I guess time really does heal some wounds.
Here's what I need to tell you. Whether you knew about me or not, I have always known about you! And the knowledge of you caused me great happiness. You were my refuge when things were bad, my port in a storm...and there were lots of storms! But because of you I could always say to myself: "If my dad were here things would be different!"
Like little kids do when they don't know the whole story, I loved you anyway! I figured that if you didn't come back it probably had something to do with my mother! I never thought it was about me...In all honesty, I probably should have, but I never did! But I did think that if I made myself the best little girl in the whole world you'd be able to find me somehow and everything would then be perfect! Well, I was the best little girl in the world....you didn't come back and find me....and everything wasn't perfect. And that's the way life goes.
I may never meet you, and this may be the only letter I ever write you, so I want you to know that while my childhood was really bad, the rest of my life has been really good! Jeff and I have been together for more than 30 years. Unfortunately, we didn't have children, and I didn't get the chance to show a little girl what it should be like to be loved by a parent whose always there.
But I have shown that love to every little girl and every little boy I've come in contact with throughout my life. I think you would have been proud of me. I don't want to hurt you by saying this, but I felt that they deserved to be loved unconditionally by someone,...everyone,....in their vicinity, to make up for any love they missed by a parent not being there for them when they needed them to be. And since there were no kids of our own, Jeff and I also showered all kinds of love on each other. It made up for it...kinda. :-]
As to me, I love music,...all kinds,...and I sing a bit too. I was almost the lead singer in a couple of groups when I was younger even! Now I just sing to Jeff and my congregation. I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses, and a Bible teacher. I've had many students over the years that I have watched raise their children in loving environments. I've often wondered what kind of family ours would have been if I had 2 parents growing up in a house full of love for God and each other.
I love to read, talk, and write poetry. I wrote a book about my life that I may try to get published one day...Don't worry. I wasn't TOO hard on you! ^_^ Honestly, I could be here all day trying to tell you about all the things that make up ME! I'll spare you. I'll save it for the day we meet...Yes, I believe it will happen!
Saying goodbye right now is going to be kind of hard. So, before I do, I'll say something else that I need to say...I love you...and I always will.
I'll carry your genes with pride and try my best to make you proud of the woman that I have, and will, become. Maya Angelou, one of my favorite poets, once said that 'people do what they know how to do, and when they learn better, they do better'. I hope that after you read this letter you say to yourself that if given another chance you would 'do better'. I believe you would. If given the chance to have the baby girl I always wanted for myself and to do the best I could for her, I would have. Somehow with your genes in me, I know without you saying it, that you would. I think that you and I would have been great friends...Dad.
Until we meet, your daughter, Deb
My Baby Girl
To the little girl
that I never had,
when I think of you
it makes me sad.
All the years
that I missed;
Your little forehead
I could have kissed.
Watching your eyes
when I breast fed;
Reading you stories
when you went to bed.
How the words
would've run like water
off my tongue,
just to call you "daughter"!
Tucking you in,
with your "Teddy Bear";
Changing your diapers,
combing your hair.
Sharing secrets,
when you could talk;
Watching you pull yourself
up to walk.
The first time you
would eat solid food;
Your first baby pictures,
in the nude.
How I now wish
I had not been afraid,
and let all of my
opportunities fade.
I might well have been
a good mother;
And who knows-
You might have had a brother!
I could have walked you to school
on your first day;
You could have learned to cook.
I would have taught you the way.
You could have played with dad
(Too rough for me!)
I could have watched you sing
with dad-off key.
Oh-The many things
I could have taught her,
my little baby girl,
my child-my daughter.
But-is it too late now,
for that endeavor?
Who knows-(God willing
I won't be childless forever.)
Just the thought of it,
my heart it warms,
that one day I'll hold
my baby girl in my arms;
Or maybe one day
it will be
a baby boy
looking up at me.
But naming a boy 'Alanise'
would not be kind.
That name is for the baby girl
of my heart and mind.
And I'll hold her close
one day.(I just know it!)
But until then,
I'm just a baby girl poet.
Other letters:
1.) "Say What You Need To Say" A letter to my mother by Cindy at CinLynnBoutique
2.) Today is 'Say what you need to say' Day by Velma of SnowFlakeDreams1
3.) three: the one we forgot by Hollie at the blog And baby makes three
