If I could meet you, I am not sure if I would hug you or wish you hurt. The old me would wish you pain, but the new me is grateful for all the motivation you set fire to in my soul.Your actions have caused a ripple effect that you will never know until now.
Back story- My father was a millwright at a paper mill. My mother was a receptionist there as well. My dad worked with lots of men who weren’t skilled tradesmen like him. Because of this,
he would normally finish his job faster with time to spare. Over time, over years, the other men began to grow jealous and mess with his work. For example, they would take off his nuts and
bolts on his jobs and say, “Oh yeah, that was Scotty’s work”, blaming him.
For quite some time, filled with toxic masculinity made for quite a large fire building inside. My mother pleaded with him to go to her and address the long-awaited issue, but unfortunately
my father decided to take it into his own hands-physically.
To this day, I don’t really know the details, only the ones my mother felt comfortable sharing.
But this is what I can tell you.
He ended up putting Mr. Man into the hospital and into a coma. Praise God that the man woke up, or I’m pretty sure I would be a different person now. His actions caused my family to go into
debt paying lawyer fees, walking on eggshells, hiding all this from me for years while living in fear and then slowly breaking my father’s identity in pieces.
My father is not a bad man. Not a type of man who would do this by any means without being pushed to the edge. I could go on and on, but the end result is by the grace of God, he never went to jail.
He did however lose the ability to have happy moments with his wife and daughter with the sense of shame holding over him.
To my father:
You are a great father. You have always pushed me to “get back on the horsey” no matter what. I pray you forgive yourself one day fully. I never looked at you any differently. I have wanted you to get back on that horse.Your pain was our pain in those moments.
- Your Daughter
