Did you have a good father or a bad father when you were a child? Is the answer that simple?
I heard about my father’s death a few months after his deathwhen the surrogate court sent me a mandatory legal notice. I was 48 years old. We’ve been apart for over ten years.
In his will, my father passed me over and stated not once, but twice, that under no circumstances could I receive his money, even if all other potential beneficiaries were deceased. In my father’s eyes, I was unforgivable.
Before I learned to swim, my father walked into the deep end of our town pool, raised his leather wrists, opened his arms, and grabbed me. When I jumped, he reached down and I slipped under the water and sank for a few seconds before my father pulled me to the surface. When I coughed, he laughed hysterically and tried to choke me.
He said we should try again. This time he promised to catch me. I got out of the pool and went to the side. I hesitated, bending my knees.
“I’ll take you,” my father repeated, gesturing with his head and hands.
My legs were shaking, but my father’s desire was trying to catch me. I wanted him to be the kind of father that would catch me, so I held my breath, closed my eyes, and jumped, hoping that this time—this time—he would keep his promise. He did very little.
Years later, I read Martha Stout Sociopath next doorand recognized my father.
My love for my father was strong. He wasn’t all bad. He can be caring. Growing up, he sat by my bedside when I was sick, when I felt anxious before my violin auditions, gave me pep talks, took me to pop-hop scouts, and did the do-si-do, even though, according to my mother, he hated dancing. I pretended to be a good father for years until I couldn’t pretend anymore.
When I was a girl, I begged, but my father said we couldn’t have a dog. For comfort, he offered to be my pretend dog. He got down on all fours, barked and panted. I was infatuated and fascinated until he pushed me and lowered his body on top of me. I had no power to prevent what happened next.
I often drowned in my father’s sadism, his mental floods and sexual violence. At the age of 30, when I started talking and writing about myself childhood experiences, people I knew and people I didn’t know asked the same question: “Have you forgiven him?” Some have encouraged me to forgive him by referring to him to forgive as a command that offers lines from the Bible. My father was a poor man who deserved forgiveness. Good people forgive. Was I a good person?
My father has never apologized for his behavior and has never been formally charged or convicted of any crime. crime. While he once admitted over the phone that he had done what I said, he quickly retracted his statement. He said that my perception of his behavior was wrong and that my unforgiving accusations were like stabbing him in the chest: He was a victim.
In a study on forgiveness, professor of epidemiology at Harvard University Tyler Vanderville says that forgiveness can promote mental health and well-being. Vanderwel defines forgiveness as “replacing ill will toward the offender with good will” and names empathizing with the offender as an important step toward forgiveness.
I sometimes wonder if my father ever felt sympathy or goodwill. I felt sympathy and goodwill toward my “good” father, but not toward my abusive father. But in the end, sympathy and goodwill had nothing to do with me coming to forgive my father.
The dog did.
In my mid-40s, living alone during the pandemic, I adopted Boa yellow lab mix from Mississippi that came with a severe separation anxiety. When I went to work, Beau went to doggy daycare, a place where he felt happy, safe, and loved—until another dog attacked him. Bow’s injuries were so severe that he needed immediate surgery to repair the damage. After a few days he wouldn’t stop crying, gasping, pacing, and hiding in my bathtub.
Important reading for forgiveness
The vet prescribed a sedative (Xanax) which is not available at the clinic. Since most pharmacies don’t allow dogs, my only option was to accompany Bo to the CVS-thru. I pulled up, put the prescription in the tube, pressed the button, heard it lift off the plane, and waited.
The voice of the intercom was loud and tight. “What’s your father’s name? I can’t read the writing.”
Beau, wearing a cone, moaned in the back seat.
“That’s not my dad,” I said, pressing my mouth against the plastic device, hearing my voice rise. The veterinarian noted “dog” in the prescription. “This is my dog.”
At that moment, the seed of forgiveness took hold, although I didn’t know it until months later when I came to see Beo. injuryand then, my history with my father brought up and with it all my unresolved emotions: shock, angerthe betrayal, the loss of safety where safety was promised, the lack of control, the question of whether I live or die—above all, sadness that the good father I wanted and needed was gone, the connection between us was broken.
Even before Bo’s attack, my bond with my father resonated in the simple presence of my dog—his panting, his barking, and the way he played wildly. Worse, in the vicinity of a scooter or roller coaster or other random triggers, Bo suddenly turns from a calm and sweet companion into a lunging and grumbling animal – something I nervous system registered to my father’s rapid transformation, from a caring man to a ruthless bully.
It wasn’t until I learned to separate my dog from my father that I could fully accept the truth of my past and be present with compassion, understanding, and unconditional love for Bo. In the days after his attack, Bo’s suffering allowed me to heal the part of me that still suffered from the transgressions of my childhood. Only then did I begin to feel sad that I had lost. I never expected forgiveness to come after that.
Forgiving my father was not something I wanted to do. Forgiveness wasn’t even an option, it was just something I felt.
Forgiving my father was like letting go of my pain and his violent grip on my life. Forgiveness freed me from the pain of my father’s behavior and it was me attachment to the good father I wanted and needed, a construct long dead. Forgiveness was part of the process of grieving the loss of someone I loved and once trusted to survive.
I’ve learned that forgiveness is not a passage, but a passage. When I forgave my father, he was not exonerated. He received no benefit, not because he was no longer alive, but because forgiveness, as I learned, is not an outward act, but an inner gift of liberation: I am no longer a victim of my father. I’m just me. free
This Father’s Day, what are you doing to be more free?
*This post is excerpted and adapted from essay previously in HuffPost (2023).
