To dad

Sometimes I wonder how you’re doing mentally. I ponder on how your childhood was, the traumas you went through?. My feelings have changed from anger to compassion. Now that I understand the difficulties in this world, I feel deep sadness for what you must have went through to turn out the way you did. You hardly express yourself, spend time with your family, teach me how to be a better man, and show fatherly love. My anger towards you has always been from a son longing for attention from his father, a relationship with his dad, his big old pal but you hardly noticed. All you did was create this hard shell around you and you drifted further and further away from my life while still here physically if that makes sense. I wonder what troubled you so bad to lack compassion for your own.

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Community member - 4 months ago

Man… reading this, you can really feel how much you’ve carried for a long time. Wanting your dad to just be there for you, to talk, to guide you, to show you love, that’s such a real and human thing. There’s nothing wrong with you for feeling that way. That kind of distance, especially when someone is physically there but emotionally far away, cuts deep. What really stands out though is how your perspective has changed. Not everyone gets to a place where they can look past the hurt and start wondering what the other person went through. That doesn’t erase what you missed out on, but it shows a lot of heart. At the same time, don’t lose sight of your own pain. You were a son who needed his father, and that need mattered. It still matters. And the fact that you can put this into words like this… it shows you’re not closed off, you’re not hardened in the same way. You’re still open, still feeling, still trying to understand. You might not get all the answers from him, and that’s the hard part. But you do get to decide what kind of man you become from here. And honestly, the way you’re thinking and reflecting, it already says you’re heading in a different direction. You deserved more. And it’s okay to say that, while still trying to understand him too.

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