Debts and Forgiveness

You say that I owe you. And, by “you”, I definitely mean you. When I finish writing this, I’ll decide if I’ll send it or if writing it alone will satisfy this need to vent.

Last night, running through my head was a list of things that I owe you. So, here goes, in no particular order of happening and/or importance:

(1) I owe you for slapping our 14-year-old daughter across the face in front of her best childhood friend, and terminating that friendship;

(2) I owe you for walking out on your family rather than trying to be a good husband and father.

(3) I owe you for leaving your son with such a permanent sense of rejection that he operates from a place of never feeling good enough.

(4) I owe you so very much for all the pain and tears I have seen in our children’s eyes over the years by the things you have said and done.

(5) I owe you for the years you spent sleeping with every skank in the Peel Region.

(6) I owe you for meeting my best friend for dinner to tell her what a bad marriage you were in, and both of you keeping it a secret from me, and thereby ending that friendship.

(7) I owe you for barely putting in an appearance at my father’s funeral.

(8) I owe you for thinking you still have a right to be a part of the family that has rejected me my whole life. And you know it!

(9) I owe you for continuing to poke your ugliness into my life every chance you get, never allowing me to forget.

Nine seems a good number, like ten would be too much. Yes, I owe you, but none of this is my debt to pay. I believe in the universe, I believe in goodness, I believe that good temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that you will never truly be happy because of all the pain you have caused, that it floats in the very air that surrounds you. Ah, to heck with it, here’s 10:

(10) I owe you for being a bad father. Not just a negligent, uncaring father, but a BAD father to these two beautiful people. You are not entitled to their respect or their love; you needed to earn it. You cheated yourself, you know, but I don’t care about that. You cheated them, you hurt them, and for that you will never be forgiven.