Today is my oldest daughter's seventeenth birthday.
I can count the conversations I have
had with her in the last six years on one hand.
You're not supposed to have favorites, but Faith and I were very close. She was "my person". As a husband I failed her mother terribly.
As a father, I gave over my right to continue to be of influence in her life as the unintentional by-product of leaving that toxic relationship. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Years without a drink or drug,
I now have the opportunity to feel every single thought and impression with a sober mind
and body. Making myself available to Faith yet sitting in the purgatory of my own creation is like being held just under a water's surface until you think you cannot hold your breath in any longer...
every. single. day.
I see the surface, I claw and climb towards it, yet I am held
down by the weight of the pain I caused her. I feel incomplete. A feeling of apathy whitewashes the experiences life now gives me. A deeply rooted spirit of perfectionism tells me maybe this is the year, maybe this is the season that she comes running back into my open arms. But she does not.
And so I wait…
The gift she has given me on this her seventeenth year of life, is the gift of knowing. I now know what unconditional love is and for that, I am eternally grateful.