Dear Freddie,

Your granddaughters were lucky  enough to attend a few daddy/daughter dances (DDD) with their father. Every year, all three of them would get dressed up, hit the school dance and then go out for a fancy dinner. It was a special night for the girls, as they got to spend some quality time alone with their dad. 

I recently came across the photos of one of the dances. As I scrolled through them, I realized that I felt a twinge of envy. You weren't around much after the age of 6, so I never got to attend the daddy/daughter dance. This realization led to a spiral of sorts. I started thinking about all the things I never got to do, or experience, because you never wanted to be a dad. The DDD is just a tiny blip.

You died last year, along with my chances of ever getting any answers from you. There are so many questions. You’re gone now and it's too late, but I still need to ask them.

Firstly, where were you for 28 years? I last saw you when I was 17. I got a handful of vague updates over the years from your family, but you never came back around. Did you ever finally settle down? Did you ever get remarried or have more kids? I'm half-expecting that at some point in the not-so-distant future, I'll open my front door to a stranger who says they're my half brother or sister. How crazy would that be? To think that I might have had a sibling this whole time nearly shatters my heart. How unfair and cruel of you that would have been. But it doesn't matter now because you're gone. For good, this time.

Where were you living when you died? I asked about you a few times over the past couple of years, and nobody knew where you were. Were you here, in Chicago, the whole time? Were you here the whole time and never bothered to look me up? Maybe you decided that looking me up after so long would have been a bad idea. Maybe you actually saved me some (more) grief by living like a ghost.

How did you die? Had you been sick? I wonder to myself who would have taken care of you if you had gotten sick. Maybe, at the end, there was no one. As mad as I am at you, I don't necessarily wish that you had died alone. But I still wonder: who was there with you at the end? Who comforted you when your life slipped away? Was it a stranger? Did a hospital volunteer hold your hand? Or maybe one of the nurses? Did you think of me then, at the end? Did you think of me and the granddaughters you never met? I'm not even sure you knew about both of them. Did you think of all the wasted years and missed opportunities? Did you feel regret, or remorse, for what you did to me? As mad as I am at you, I hope you died peacefully.

Lastly, why didn’t you love me enough to get your shit together? Why didn’t you try harder? I want to know why you didn't try harder. Was it because your father was a shitty parent, and that's where you learned it from? While I do understand, I still think you should have tried harder. You should have tried to do better than him. You should have tried to become the kind of man, and father, that he wasn't capable of being. But you didn't. You didn't even try.

I wish I could tell you how long it took me to realize that you were the root cause of so many issues in my life. That your abandonment shaped me in more ways than I ever realized. I wish I could tell you how I spent years chasing love from the wrong people because you never gave me any of yours. That I looked for love in, literally, all the wrong places. How many years and years and years chasing a love that I was never going to get?

I’m 45 years old and just now digging down deep. I want to heal the unhealthy attachments I have to love, and this letter is an important first step for me. I have to confront these feelings and lay them down to rest. I deserve that peace.

I can't blame myself anymore. It wasn't my fault. That 6-year-old girl was not to blame for your disappearance, nor was that 16-year-old or 26-year-old girl. I know that now. But I blamed myself for all of those years, almost my entire life. I thought that maybe I was hard to love and that's why you couldn't. I thought maybe there was something wrong with me. But it wasn't me. It was you. Shame on you for that.

I wish I could say that things had ended differently, but I really don't. Because despite all of the sadness and anger I have felt towards you for 28 years, my life still turned out pretty fucking incredible. I'm finally leaving the past where it belongs and freeing up space in my heart that you never deserved. I wish I could say that I had known you, but I really don't. I think that maybe you did me the biggest favor of all by disappearing, because deep down you knew that you could never be who I needed you to be.

28 years of carrying this heavy shit around is long enough. 

It's time for me to let it go.

It's time for you to disappear, one last time. Rest well, Freddie.