How Do You Grieve An Abusive Parent?

One year ago, my dad died suddenly. Now, with Father’s Day near, I find myself contending with the nuances of his death.

What does it mean to lose an abusive parent — how do you mourn that, if there is a proper way to mourn?

As I’ve struggled through this process of grief, I wrote him this letter to grapple with my emotions.

A Letter to My Dead Dad

How is it where you are? To be honest, I’ve never believed in an afterlife, but the need to cling to some hope of existence beyond our temporary one here is more real to me now that you’re gone.

We’re in quarantine right now thanks to a global pandemic. I know — weird times, but it’s probably weirder for you, I guess.

Truth Laid Bare

I was driving with Mom the other day when she confided in me, “If Dad were still here and had managed to sustain his sobriety until now, the quarantine would’ve led him to drink. And he would’ve made my life so hard — harder than it is now without him.”

I found the statement profound because we have a tendency to romanticize situations, to shield ourselves from pain, and to shield ourselves from truth. But here it was the truth laid bare and indisputable.

I don’t say this to hurt you but to afford myself and our family the benefit of honesty, and I think you would want that for us.

Gasps Amidst the Wreckage

Growing up, I can’t count the number of times I had wished you were gone. Your alcoholism stole the air from our house and slowly suffocated us, leaving us gasping amidst the wreckage.

“I had wilted under the weight of your anguish.” From my eulogy to you.

Your wretchedness broke me and crumbled my person into something unrecognizable. My identity was shaped by the hate you hurled my way — my worldview was tended by the pain you wrought.

When I was young, Mom left after another night of your senseless drunken anger to stay in a hotel, leaving us to confront you. As my siblings stayed upstairs, I sat with you at the kitchen counter and watched you sob. I had never seen you cry before — and would rarely ever see it.

You pleaded that she needed to come home, that you needed her to survive. Tears and gasps. Your vulnerability shocked me as I sat there forced to contend with the fact that we were nothing more than a pawn in this game of addiction.

Time and time again, I would be called in to clean up your mess, sorting through the wreckage you reaped. My identity is undoubtedly bound by my role containing you.

Broken

I remember on multiple occasions begging Mom to leave you. She would feebly tell me it would get better, even though we both knew that wasn’t true. So hearing her admit now how painful the present would be with you, shook me. I had for years tried to say that and was met only with resistance and a fear of what lay on the other side.

That’s the thing about alcoholism, it leaves its victims helpless in a vacuum void of control. Broken by it, the fear of what lies beyond the vacuum leaves victims paralyzed in its wake. Your violent death spit us from its pits, and we are slowly removing the bonds of this disease with which you maimed us.

Change Is Fleeting

In the year before you died, I remember finding you hidden in a closet, stopping you from hurling yourself out of a fast-moving car, holding you up as you stumbled into a hospital, and crying as you ran away from a rehab facility.

The thing is that so many people see their dad as a strong and brave figure, but I have no illusions of that.

And when you finally agreed to go into detox, I stayed by your bedside for 12 hours a day, answered your confused phone calls in the middle of the night, and arranged for your admission to an in-patient center.

There, I watched you change into someone I did not know, someone who was markedly better than the man I grew up with and who resembled the stories Mom had told me.

I thought — this is it — change, but change is fleeting. And our contentious relationship shortly returned with your vitriol and my inability to contend with your bullshit.

I walked away — gutted, miserable, and resigned to the fact that we were forever cursed.

Did You Ever Hear Me?

There were of course moments of light like Father’s Day in the San Juan Islands, where you seemed free in some indescribable way. Less than three weeks later you’d be dead though.

The last time I saw you was a few days before your heart ceased beating. Mom, Sister, you, and I went for a walk. In the end, I hugged them goodbye. To you, I smiled and waved, consciously avoiding the words, “I love you.”

Now, you’re gone, and my emotions are mixed: sadness, relief, and guilt.

And I wonder, “Can you see me now? Can you hear me? Did you ever hear me?”

If You Are Anywhere

The day after you died, we went to a family gathering where I collapsed on the stairs sobbing and had to be carried out. “Why was he gone?” I wracked the universe for answers.

I had given my life to saving you, and you died so quickly. I gave you everything I had — I took on your pain, shouldered your grief, and carried the weight of your addiction. Alone in the storm, I comforted you for years, shaving away my own joy and levity and sacrificing what I had for you.

As all sense seemed lost, Mom whispered that night, “Don’t you see? You saved him. You gave him love when no one else would. You taught him to accept love.”

Is that true, Dad? What do you think of me wherever you are, if you are anywhere? Because I’m in pain here.