Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

               I am writing you this letter so you can take into account the experiences in my life which have shaped me into the woman I am today,

               You and me are very similar, if we have an issue we argue and then hug it out and the issue is closed. I like that. I hate it when people hold things over you and regurgitate them at a very inopportune moment.

               Before our phone call three weeks ago you were very harsh around the whole abuse issue. You kept telling me to ‘put it behind you,’ and that ‘he’s dead twelve years now, so stop thinking about it!’ I never thought that we shared issues regarding that heinous bastard, just in different ways. I wake up every morning and have to live with the fact that he abused me for eight years. Until you brought it to my attention, I never imagined that you wake up every morning knowing that it was your father who ruined your daughter’s life.

               I know you see hospital as a reminder of what that paedophile did, but you have to remember that this place for me is therapeutic. It picks me up when I’m down and gives me the strength to walk again. I’m so lucky to have the VHI and before you roll your eyes indicating that my life’s goal is to use up all of my days every year…. well… you couldn’t be more wrong.

               I come in here to get the treatment I need at the time and, yes there is a pattern of long admissions, but you just cannot heal the mind like a broken leg, putting a plaster on it just doesn’t work. Also, you can’t see it because you never come to visit but I’m getting better slowly…. very slowly.

               On the 27^th of May I tied a ligature around my neck and was luckily found in time, but had to go, by ambulance, to the local general hospital for treatment. They told me that if they hadn’t found me when they did that I would have died. I was unconscious for ten minutes waiting for the ambulance. The marks on my neck for the following week were obvious to what I tried to do.

               Your son, my brother, Kevin, having lost three friends in three months, had made me swear in November 2021 that I would never do that to him. It was ironic as Kevin and mom were doing a drop off at the hospital and joked that they hoped the ambulance wasn’t for me…then they got the call. Yes, they got the call and you didn’t.

You have proven over the years that you aren’t next of kin material. You were kicked out of the hospital too many times to count, and when I was in the locked ward for five months you got volatile with a nurse and started to threaten her, hence them banning you from the ward…. that was about the time when you pulled back.

You told me when covid hit that you didn’t want to see me anymore. That was like a knife through my chest. Since then, I’ve only seen you four times…two of them in the visiting room in hospital where you kept on about the time and when could you go. That cut me up and made me feel miniscule. No, you don’t like the place but you are supposed to love me so it shouldn’t have been an issue to put your best foot forward for forty-five minutes and suck in your issues.

I don’t like the way you treat Kevin either. No, you haven’t talked to the man in two years, but whose fault is that. You shouldn’t have asked him if he was on steroids just because he had put on a bit of weight since covid. You should know well that he’s a dancer, a perfectly honourable job, and when you go from teaching eight classes a day to nothing, of course you’re going to put on a few pounds. What you said to him was over the line, even for you! And don’t think I didn’t see your eyes twinkle when I told you to google him the last time, I saw you. When you saw his headshot and all of his accomplishments, I saw a glimmer of pride enter your face…I’m not blind!!!

Quite frankly, I’m delighted you have covid at the minute. You keep saying that it’s no more than a head cold, but if you were in contact with your son, who has had long covid for seven months now, barely able to do the stairs, and can feel his daily struggle over the next few days, you might shut up and show him some sympathy. Then again, I don’t think you were born with a sympathetic bone.

Look dad, I love you to pieces but just because your kids are grown-ups now, doesn’t stop them being your kids. All kids need their father….no matter what age they are!!!

I hope that when I’m finally released from this place that we can go to the airport to plane watch again. I really enjoy that, but not only for the planes which fascinate me, but because I have you all to myself for two hours doing something that we both share an interest in that’s free. You provide the breakfast rolls and I’ll bring the radio so we can hear the air traffic controllers.

I love you more than I did yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow.

XX

Sinead

picture from pixabay