This is mostly addressed to her.
I know where you are. I’ve stood in the same place myself twice before, the last time barely five months ago. Hell I’m still there now, caught in a Sisyphean trap by an illness that wipes weeks of improvement away in a single moment of dis-cognizance. So when I saw that look, that I recognised from the mirror, in your eyes I held you tightly to stop you falling apart completely. I have stood by you despite what may cost me. I’ve always stood by you, sacrificed things for you. I’ve never asked for anything in return other your hand in marriage. I’ve never been happier than the day you gave it to me.
I love you more than anything else in the whole world. I’d sacrifice everything I have, ever will have and ever had, for you.
The fact of the matter is you are worth it all and more.
The fact of the matter is that you are one of the strongest people I know. You have soldiered through more rough times than anyone I know. In fact it’s been pointed out to me that trying to keep up with you may be what pushed me past my breaking point.
While you may feel that you broke your father’s heart every time he looked at you, I think you might have missed his pride when he saw his grandchildren. Beneath his dour exterior there was a man who loved you with all his heart. It takes one to know one. He and I fought because there would never be a man worthy of his daughter. I could have been a multi-billionaire Presbyterian roughneck and I might have just scratched in the grade, and he’d have been suspicious of my motives. So when he welcomed me into his family, me a lazy guy with daydreams of being a writer, he did so because he respected you choice in partner. He respected you. You do him a disservice every time you repeat the fallacy that he felt you were unworthy.
Sure you may have been a disappointment, but then that’s the lot of parents. I know that while my parents always said that they’d always stand by me whatever I chose to do with my life, they struggled until quite recently to live up to that ideal. I’m pretty sure we’ll feel our kids will let us down too. Sure it may appear that your dad went easier on your brothers, although I doubt he did. But perhaps he expected less of them.
We will get through this awful year, somehow, and we’ll come out the other side stronger and better people. You will get better, you just have to stop being so hard on yourself. Be yourself and not what you think other people want you to be.
“Cry ‘havoc’, and let slip the dogs of war.“
