Death

I just returned from my father's funeral and I felt nothing. It really bothered me and even now I don't know if it makes me a bad person or not. My father was a control freak and in his heart of hearts he didn't like me. My parents had to get married because of me. Today that means nothing, but in 1949 it was a dishonor. There were problems with my father's side of the family. He was only 19 yrs old and had gotten a 22 year old widow with two children pregnant. They resented my mother and even though things changed my mother never forgot it.

Over the years my father was abusive. He called me an ox, he hit me, he disconnected my arm when I was three years old, he ruptured my ear drums, he made a feel like I was a prisoner, he told me I was nobody, he was ashamed of me, he did so many things I developed a terrible inferiority complex, he didn't like me. I don't think it would have mattered what I did, when things went wrong it was my fault. If not for me.... And the hardest part was he would never say he was sorry, denied it all, and when I was 57 told me he was sorry if I thought in my head that he did any thing. He told me that was the best I would get. It wasn't enough. So today I feel nothing, I am not sad except for my mother, I am not happy, I feel numb. But not like crying. I will never forget how he treated me, I will never get back those years of low esteem that wrecked my confidence. I pushed on in life and gave it what I had, but I wonder what I could have done with confidence. Could I have been more? Could I have loved myself?

And now I am old. I feel old. I have not a lot of time to fix myself. But somehow I feel that deep inside me is a deep sigh. I don't need to care about that anymore. I hope I can let it go. I really do.

I just published my first book. I am somebody, I do have a talent and it's all mine. I am not a failure. I am an author...I am an author.