After years of silence between my parents and me, my father reached out with a few simple words.
When I was growing up, my family had its own way of dealing with disagreements. We stopped speaking. Sometimes the deep freeze lasted a day, sometimes a week. Every once in a while, an offending cousin or aunt was simply erased from the family landscape, airbrushed out of our lives like a deposed member of the Politburo.
I stopped talking to my parents after a series of family difficulties culminating in an angry phone conversation with my mother in 1988. This communication blockade continued to 2000. Other than an annual Christmas card from my parents, which they warmly signed using only their last name, there was no interaction whatever for 12 years.
People like me who were raised in a grudge-holding culture know that the silent treatment is self-perpetuating. The longer you are silent, the longer you will be silent. The further out into the ocean you sail, the harder it is to see the harbor. After a year or two or three, it's not so easy to pick up the phone and just chat.
And then my father sent me a card in which he wrote three very powerful words: "I'm so sorry."
We began to write letters. I told him about his grandchildren. He told me about his weekly golf and bowling outings. He also told me about my mother's Alzheimer's. Every letter matter-of-factly mentioned a new loss, always preceded by the phrase "Mom is about the same," as in "Mom is about the same but she can't cook anymore because she forgot how to use the stove."
The letters represented rapprochement but not reconciliation. That would have to happen in person. A year later it did. On the six-hour drive to their home, I asked my husband every 10 minutes what I should say to parents I hadn't seen in 12 years. "Say hello," he said. "Ask what's new."
Wow. This is absolutely beautiful. My family is not a silent one, but we do hold grudges. I still have not yet forgiven my father for his abuse of my mother, and he still has not apologized. This affects every aspect of our father-daughter relationship. If he would just apologize, which seems to be an insurmountable task for him, I would forgive him for ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING and build a real relationship with him.
Comment from DKN to:
Dear Mrs Janice W.,
The opening paragraph of your article gave reader a feeling that your parents are the ones who started the cold war in your family:
" ... series of family difficulties culminating in an angry phone conversation with my mother in 1988..."
After reading the whole story, as a serious reader, I keep asking myself that your mother had terminate disease, you should say " I am Sorry " to your Mom in the first place, in 12 years ago !!!
Your father was not in any part of the angry phone conversation between his wife and his daughter, but he did say " I am sorry" .
You should be happy because you are no longer an orphan and because you had a wonderful and generous father.
Unfortunately at the present time your parents could not have any feeling of being kissed on their headstone !
The lesson that I have learned from your story:
- Life is short, if you really LOVE and CARE for someones, LET'S DO IT NOW before it's too late !
Thank you for sharing your experiences in life.
DKN
I am so sorry you had a father who is a jerk. You did and do deserve better. Please, do yourself a favor - don't open his letters, don't accept his calls. Don't let yourself anywhere near this man, as he is an abuser and will probaby never change. And please, see a therapist or a professional counselor. You deserved a better father, but you can still heal yourself and have a great life. You might not forgive, but you can move on with hope and love, and that's the best anyone can hope for. Good luck!
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