Loyalties: prompt
Enough Arrived
Imagined obligations
I told them — the people at Elder Abuse — I told them you don’t take good care of me, that you’re a horrible daughter. I told them!
Those were the last words my father said to me as he stood on the property I purchased for him outside the home I purchased for him.
A lifetime of trying to earn his love and the trying stopped early on a Wednesday morning.
I walked away. My permanent departure was not planned but perhaps, inevitable. Or, was it? I shouldered his verbal abuse for 48 years — why wouldn’t I continue?
But, I didn’t. On that Wednesday, enough arrived on a long-overdue train.
I teetered on bankruptcy from the needs and wants of the man I called Dad. My marriage was in shambles, partly due to the man I called Dad. I took daily anti-depressants, mostly due to the man I called Dad. I had no self-esteem because of the man I called Dad.
His other three daughters either did not communicate with him or rarely communicated with him, leaving me to keep him safe and alive so he could abuse me for another day.
Never a slap or a kick or a punch. But, abuse nonetheless. The kind that travels loudly through air and phone lines. The kind overheard by…
