This is an acknowledgement of your birth. It does not come with love nor respect as it should have and could have; as you never worked for or desired either. Your birth is acknowledged as a way to affirm that you were here and I am witness and one of many victims to that truth.
I review your life's work and see a course that was charted and sailed and in it's careless wake, left behind wounded and changed individuals. When you vow to love another human being and then create new life with them that is a sacred and cherished responsibility. You shirked that obligation with 4 women and 6 children.
The fact that you treated the women in your life so callously and disposed of them like a snake sheds their skin, without thought or directive, but simply because it was time and you grew out of their usefullness to you is the first layer in your coat of shame.
It is the children, the six individuals you sired and abandoned at will when you deemed it time to move on that I am speaking for today. To not be acknowledged or recognized is one of the harshest acts you can inflict upon another human being - but to do this to your own child is akin to any verbal or physical abuse you could unleash onto them; to not deem a person worthy of taking up the space of a single thought in your mind while years unwind and you go on living in your bloated bubble of self absorbtion is inconceivable to me.
I remember the day like it was this morn; we all gathered in the kitchen and she said "Your father is going away for a very long time; give him a hug and a kiss goodbye." The pain was searing and immediate, filling my body from the ground to my head, like hot lava rising up to see sky above. There were questions, and pleas, and 3 clinging children needing to know why, desparate for answers that were not to be had from any adult in the room. You seemed quite resigned and solid in this last act, there were no tears or words of softness to dull the ache, just biding your time to re-chart the course.
I came home from school thinking this was not the truth, you would be there and all would be restored to normal. I sat on the floor by the screen door, crying your title over and over, willing "Daddy" to come home. When she could stand it no more, she walked up behind me and with hate in her heart and poison on her tounge she icily stated "You can stop your crying; he is never coming back.". She did not lie.
Your collateral damage was human in nature and you left a stain upon each of us that altered our individual destinies. I see it from a child's perspective and now from a parent's, both views can not comprehend how one person could make the same choices with the same results repeatedly and not feel any remorse whatsoever.
I didn't have my children a week's time in my possession before I knew in my deepest fiber of self awareness that I would do anything for their safekeeping and well being; yet you left children from ages 4 - 13 during your lifetime with the obligation one reserves for a spec of dirt on your coat; something to be flicked away and never seen again.
It is my hope and prayer that justice is served in the next phase of our journey. In my mind, a person who never sought or asked forgiveness to those they wronged on this earth will be in a holding status; not permitted to move forward until you right the wrongs of those you trespassed upon in his lifetime. In my mind you will validate the people you damaged.
At this time I do not forgive you, but I choose to be unlike you in everyway. I learned my lesson well and unlike you, I will acknowledge your existance, and in that act I hold you accountable for what you have done.
And so you were born.
