Letter to D

[Elphanigh]

D is an abuser of mine, not my dad but I am not sure what else to abbreviate him to.



D,

Honestly I am not sure why I am writing to you. You caused me and those around me more pain than I am capable of expressing in words. I looked you up today, despite knowing better. You are having another little girl, your first one is almost 2 years old. When I found out about her I went spinning because I was so afraid for her and feared that by not finding a way to lock you away all those years ago that she was somehow my responsibility. I learned over time that she was not my job and that I did everything I could back then. Seeing that you are having another little girl, that you have gotten married, and seem to have a happy life.. I am both glad and heartbroken. There is a part of me that truly wishes you have changed, that you are healthy enough to raise those girls how they deserve, healthy enough to love your wife and treat her well.. That part of me wishes you a better life recognizing what caused you to hurt me was years of intergenerational pain and learning.

On the other side, I wished that your page would have showed that your life went to * these two years. I don't want to wish you poorly but you deserve to bear some of this burden and you never will. I hope some part of you lives with guilt and questions the ways you acted before.. that it has led you to hurt and feel some fraction of the pain I do. I will never wish what you did on anyone, not even you, but I do wish to know that you have felt some of the pain of this burden you gave me. I do wish you ill sometimes, even though that is so outside of my own nature. I want to know you remember the ways I do, that your life has in some way been impacted too. I wish for you to have to grieve the people you hurt and to feel that guilt.. so it fuels you to do better for those around you. I want it to fuel you loving those girls in ways that I am not sure you are even capable of.

I don't truly know what to wish you. I don't wish you harm but I do not truly wish you well either.

I do know that I wish your girls well. I wish for them to grow up in a healthy world, free of the abuses I endured. I wish them a healthy family and a happy life. I wish them so much better. I wish no harm ever comes to a hair on their head. I wish others around you well, and in conjunction I guess I must wish you well at least some. I have to wish you well enough that it does harm does not befall them... not fo you but for them. I am morally obligated to do that much.

I wish that I had managed to lock you away all of those years ago. I wish the system had not failed everyone involved but it did. I wish I didn't know where you were or what happened to you. I wish I never felt the need to wonder about you.

-Elpha