My father was a flawed human being who deserved forgiveness. In my 30s, when I began to speak and write about my childhood experiences, people I knew and people I didn’t know asked the same question: “Have you forgiven him?” Some urged me to forgive him, citing forgiveness as an edict, offering lines from the bible. ![]() He rarely did.Īs a girl, I often drowned in my father’s sadism ― his torrents of psychological and sexual abuse. I wanted him to be the kind of father who would catch me, so I held my breath, closed my eyes and jumped, hoping that this time ― this time ― he’d keep his word. “I’ll catch you,” my father said, his head and hands beckoning. I got out of the pool and went to the edge. He laughed hysterically as I coughed and tried to catch my breath, the water lapping at our shoulders. When I jumped, he took his arms down and I slipped underwater, floundering for a few seconds before my father pulled me up to the surface, holding my body against his. ![]() ![]() In my father’s view, it seemed, I was unforgivable.īefore I learned to swim, my father treaded in the deep end of our town pool, lifting his leathery tan arms, opening his hands to catch me. In his will, my father passed me over, stating not once but twice that under no circumstances was I to receive any of his money, even if all other possible beneficiaries were deceased. I learned about my father’s passing many months after his death, when a surrogate court sent me an obligatory legal notice: An estate had been created in his name. The author with her father at her college graduation.
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