Did you have a good father or a bad father when you were a child? Is the answer that simple?
I learned about my father’s death many months after his deathwhen the surrogate court sent me a mandatory legal notice. I was 48 years old. We had been divorced for over ten years.
In his will, my father passed me over not once, but twice, stating that even if all other potential beneficiaries had died, I would not receive any of his money under any circumstances. My father thinks I’m unforgivable.
Before I learned to swim, my father stomped at the bottom of our town’s pool, arms outstretched to catch me. As I jumped, he lowered his arms and I slipped under the water and floundered for a few seconds before my father pulled me to the surface. He laughed hysterically and tried to catch his breath as I coughed.
He said we should try again. This time he promised to catch me. I got out of the pool and went to the edge. I hesitated, bending my knees.
“I’ll catch you,” my father repeated, gesturing with his head and hands.
My legs were shaking, but my desire for my father to hold me was gone. I wanted him to be the father that would hold me, I held my breath, closed my eyes, and jumped, hoping that this time—this time—he would keep his promise. He rarely did.
Years later, I read Martha Stout The sociopath next doorand recognized my father.
My love for my father was worse. He wasn’t all bad. He could care. When I was growing up, she sat by my bed when I was sick, gave me a pep talk when I was worried before listening to the violin, and, according to my mother, although she hated dancing, she did the do-si-do and took me to pop-hop Girl Scouts. For years I pretended to be a good father in his entirety until I could no longer claim to be.
When I was a girl, I asked for a dog, but my father said no dog. As a consolation, he offered to be my pretend dog. He dropped to all fours, panting and panting. I was in love and enchanted until he pushed me and lowered his body on top of me. I had no power to prevent the next incident.
I often drowned in my father’s sadism, his mental and spiritual currents sexual violence. At the age of 30, when I started talking and writing about myself childhood experiences, people I know and people I don’t know ask the same question: “Have you forgiven him?” Some urged me to apologize forgiveness as a decree, offering lines from the Bible. My father was a flawed human being who deserves forgiveness. Good people forgive. Was I a good person?
My father has never apologized for his actions and he has never been formally reported or charged. crime. Although he once admitted on the phone that he had done what I said, he quickly retracted his statement. He told me that my perception of his behavior was wrong, and that my unforgivable accusations were like stabbing him in the chest: He was a victim.
In a study on forgiveness by Harvard epidemiology professor Tyler Vanderville states that forgiveness can promote mental health and well-being. Vanderwheele defines forgiveness as “replacing ill will toward the offender with goodwill” and calls empathizing with the offender an important step toward forgiveness.
I sometimes wonder if my father ever felt sympathy or goodwill. I felt sympathy and goodwill for the “good” father, but not for the abusive father. But in the end, sympathy and goodwill had nothing to do with my forgiving my father.
The dog did.
In my mid-40s, I lived alone during the pandemic. I adopted Beaua yellow lab mix from Mississippi who came in with a severe divorce worry. While I went to work Bo went to doggy daycare where he felt happy, safe and loved until he was attacked by another dog. Beau’s injuries were so severe that he needed emergency surgery to repair the damage. After a few days, she wouldn’t stop crying, gasping, pacing, and hiding in my bathtub.
Basic Readings on Forgiveness
The vet prescribed a sedative (Xanax) that was not available at the clinic. Since most drugstores don’t allow dogs, my only option was to go to the CVS drive-thru with Beau. I went upstairs, put the prescription in the tube, pressed the button, heard the air rise and waited.
The intercom was loud and strained. “What’s your father’s name? I can’t read the handwriting.”
Beau, wearing a cone, whispered in the back seat.
“That’s not my dad,” I said, bending my mouth to the plastic device, hearing my voice rise. The veterinarian noted “dog” in the prescription. “This is my dog.”
In that moment, the seed of forgiveness was born, though I didn’t know it until months later when I saw Bol. traumaand its aftermath triggered my history with my father and with it all my unresolved emotions: shock, angerbetrayal, loss of safety in a place where safety is promised, lack of control, the question of whether I live or die – most importantly, sadness The good father I wanted and needed was gone, the bond between us was broken.
Even before Bo’s attack, my connection to my father resonated in the simple presence of my dog: his panting, his barking, his mischievous play. Worse, near a scooter or rollerblader or some other random trigger, Bo suddenly turns from a quiet, sweet companion into a lunging, snarling animal. nervous system recorded in a similar tone to my father’s rapid transition from caring person to violent abuser.
Only when I learned to separate my dog from my father could I fully accept the truth of my past and be present to Bo with compassion, understanding, and unconditional love. In the days following his attack, Bo’s suffering gave me an opportunity to heal a part of myself that was still suffering from my childhood disorders. Only then did I begin to grieve my loss. I never expected forgiveness.
Forgiving my father was not what I wanted. Forgiveness didn’t even feel like a choice, it was just what I felt.
My father’s forgiveness was a release from my hurt and a release from his aggressive influence in my life. Forgiveness was my release from my father’s actions and from my pain attachment To my good father, long dead, I wanted and needed. Forgiveness was part of my process of losing someone I loved and once trusted in order to survive.
I’ve learned that forgiveness is a transition, not a transition. When I forgave my father, he was not justified. He received no benefit because he was no longer alive, but forgiveness, as I know it, is no outward act, but an inward gift of freedom: I am no longer the victim of my father. I am simple. Free.
This Father’s Day, what horrible thing will you do to be more free?
*This post is excerpted and adapted essay previously published HuffPost (2023).
