Well, 17 years ago yesterday.  Although in some moments, it feels like yesterday.  And yesterday, I completely forgot, although I will cut myself some slack as I had a pretty bad migraine.  Today is 9/11, and we're supposed to think about the World Trade Center, but a year and a day before that fateful day, my father had passed away from a short battle with cancer, which was more than just shocking, as he was only sick for a month prior.

In my memoir, I call my father "the slave" and my mother "the warden".  While he really was my mother's slave (emotional slave, working slave, etc.), he was so much more.  He was my abuser, my champion, and everything in between.  He loved me, I have no doubt about that, but he also hated me with a deep seated passion that is reserved for a man's innermost demons.  What I represented to him I'll never know.  But what I do know is that he died without saying he was sorry.  He died without making anything right.  And he had his chances to.  I gave him many.  But he never did.  I was left, alone, with an insane, grieving, narcissistic, abusive, alcoholic mother and my own abusive husband.  There was nobody to turn to, nobody to talk to.  That first year I was numb, in shock.  But come the second year, I hated him with a passion that outrivaled his own hate for me.  I could have danced and spit on his grave.  I was so very happy he was dead.

It took 12 years for me to forgive him and to heal from his abuse.  Now 17 years later (though only five years from when I healed), I feel that I still have healing left to do at times.  I can remember him without anger, without hatred, but in certain moments, I can hear his words and remember the fear I had with him being around.  This is from my recent choice to go no contact with my mother, and trying to heal from her abuse. 

My father died in 2000, and in 2010, my mother remarried to another man, who also quickly died of cancer.  And her wound was reopened.  I feel that's the same thing going on here: by being forced to deal with my mother's abuse, I am reopening the wounds of my father's abuse.

Just when I thought I had completely healed from him. 

But I am okay with this.  I am ready.  Because if this means I would be free from both of their abuse, then it's worth it.  I mean, I will never be really free, it will always bet there, lurking in the corners of my psyche, ready to rear it's ugly head when I am in a position to be reminded of their cruel and awful behavior.  So it will be something I will have to be working on for my entire life.  But will be lessened by whatever work I do now: journaling, art, therapy, etc. 

My father and my mother taught me to fear success.  To fear actually doing something with my life, to fear follow through.  They did this by putting me down over and over whenever I did actually do something great, or actually followed through with something.  They told me I was worthless, that I never amount to anything.  And so I became exactly what they said.  Every single day.

And this is what I have to undo.  This is the almost 40 years of abuse I will have to fix, 40 years of bad choices due to the engrained belief that I am not worth anything good. 

I would like to believe that if my father had a consciousness after death, he would be sorry, full of regret, and would make things right if he could.  I would like to believe these things.  To believe he would regret ruining my childhood, beating his wife, beating his dog, punching his child in the face, and emotionally and mentally destroying that same child so she is left at 40 still trying to undo all that damage.  I would like to believe these things.  But the dead can't talk and there's no such thing as psychics.

So I am left with coming to the understanding that it doesn't matter if he's sorry or not.  Or if she will ever be.  I am left with realizing it's okay, that I don't need their sorrow or their apologies.  Because even if I got one, how would I believe it?  My father is dead, he cannot apologize, but my mother is a narcissist, which means she cannot tell the truth.  Ever. 

So I am left with only one thing to heal myself with: me.  And I have to start believing that is enough.