It has been decades since anyone knew me as my father’s daughter.
Decades where I have endeavored to prove to the watching world and the ever watchful self that seed and sorrow make not the present, but the past.
It is astonishing to me the level of shame that was not only smeared all over me but stuffed inside of me. He seeded me; he also slaughtered me. God, help me, I hang my head while an audible sob escapes my quivering lips – not just me but many.
I have rejected all things associated with him. His propensity to pillage; his desire to take tender things and tear them apart; his horrific abuse of the immense power that he had; his pleasure in traumatically teasing and torturing the vulnerable; his insatiable appetite to gratuitously gorge on anyone and anything he could get his hands on.
Where he was loud, I am quiet.
Where he was brash, I am modest.
Where he lacked self-control, I exemplify it.
Where he was slovenly, I am tidy.
Where he was predatory, I am protective.
Where he was aroused, I am repulsed.
Where he was excessive, I am economical.
Where he gorged, I refrained.
Where he was ignorant, I am informed.
Where he stole, I gave.
Where he laughed, I cried.
Where he lied, I told the truth.
Not many that I know, actually know my father – for that I am thankful. He is safely and soundly gone. The world has one less predator. His seed he scattered across many lives. There are countless survivors of the madman he was. This grieves me more than I can even attempt to communicate. It hits a river of ruin and revulsion that is tied to my very DNA. It is a shame I worked so hard to rise above, yet I find myself standing right in the middle of.
Never once did I ever trust him. Never once did I ever feel safety and comfort in his presence. I was never, not ever, deceived into thinking he was safe, good, kind, or descent. My revulsion of him has risen as I have matured, the river of which has overflowed and burst its banks, in this my fourth decade.
Nothing can repair the ravage that one life can literally spew across generations. Nothing.
Nothing can stop one life that wholeheartedly commits to turning this trauma tide. Nothing.