Dear Dad

It's finally here, the moment I had prayed for this past year. As I stare at the small white box I feel nothing, I feel everything. Gone are the cherished childhood memories I once clung to. Gone is the pride I once held just being your child.

What I am feeling is betrayal. Lies and deceit are what you left me. It's come down to myself having a conversation with this box. Raging until I feel as if my very life force is inside that cardboard container needing to escape but at the same time staying until I have exhausted the pain. The pain that has become your legacy.

You've left it everywhere. Deep inside the children who trusted you. The children who looked at you with love in their hearts, joy at your attention. And you ripped their innocence away just like a murderer rips his victims with a sharp edge. And you ripped from me something that will never be replaced, except with anger. I should hate you and I weep as I realize I can't.

I hold the shovel in my hands, the pain in my stomach growing. I can feel the bile rising in my throat. The white box in my hands, I bend down, lower it in the hole. I'm releasing not you but myself. I'm releasing the guilt I have felt over what you did. You could never apologize, never express one bit of remorse. So I found myself doing those things, the whole time asking myself if this was real, couldn't be, had to be a remnant of a sick sorry nightmare.

I have one last thing to say then I will walk away and never look back. Your legacy of pain is over with each shovel of dirt that consumes this box. For we are all survivors and stronger than everything you did. We walk away secure in the knowledge that you no longer own our tomorrows.