To My Absent Father, Thank You for the Broken Promises

"Sometimes I think about you

Wonder if you're out there somewhere thinkin' 'bout me

And would you even recognize

The woman that your little girl has grown up to be

Cause I look in the mirror and all I see

Are your brown eyes lookin' back at me

They're the only thing you ever gave to me at all" – Kellie Pickler.

When I look at you, I see a stranger. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if my mother never gained the strength to walk away. Other times, I wonder what it would be like if I had never met you at all.

What I wonder more than anything is how. How can it be so easy for you? You can go months without calling. You can go years without seeing your own children.

You can look into the eyes of the child you choose, and never once see us.

It's almost hard not to ask. Ask what it's like to see you come home every night. To grow up with you, learning from you. To have you there to catch the monster's in the closet and under the bed.

I then have to remind myself about the monster's in your head. I have to remind myself about all the things we would have seen, all the scars I would have to justify from having you around.

Part of me knows you wanted to be better. Part of me holds on to the thought that someday things will change.

Part of me hopes that one day we will mean as much to you as they do. Part of me hopes, but most of me knows better.

The only hope that I have for you wholeheartedly is that you give them everything you couldn't give us. I hope that you have been and continue to always be a better man to them than you ever were to us.

I'm writing this to thank you, for many reasons. Thank you for giving my mother the chance to bring a man into our lives who could give us all the things you never could.

Thank you for showing me that you can't save someone else from their own demons. Thank you for every letdown, every missed birthday, and every broken promise.

For those things, I am a better mother.

I may always be labeled as the "girl with daddy issues", but behind those issues will always be lessons. 

Lessons that gave me strength, helped me grow and showed me everything I deserve in a man by seeing everything less.

Published by

Morgan Matthews

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