LETTER TO MY DAD, WAYNE FINCHER

To my dad,

Dad, I wanted to write you to tell you the things I never got to say to you.  I so wish that I would have had you in my life from the beginning.  I wish you would have been able to hold me and comfort me when I was hurt or sad.  I wish you were able to protect me when things were not safe for me.  I have no clue what it is like to have had a father who gave me unconditional love.  I truly have a hard time relating or communicating with men period.  I just never had that healthy example of how a male relationship is supposed to be.  I have my brothers and other males in my life but most of those relationship is or were conditional. 

I wish you would have given me my real last name.  Not having my father’s name through my young years was hard.  I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere.  I had the last name of a dead man who never knew me nor I him.  I wish so many things…

Last night as I was sharing one of my blogs I wrote back in February of 2022, it hit me hard how much I was in pain.  I had not felt that before or if I had it was not all brought forth to me.  I had written there was a sadness but so much more came forth last night and today as I go deep into my feelings.  I am hurt and just sad that I never really got to know you fully.  I know you were troubled yourself in this life.  I know you had your own trials and traumas. 

You told me how bad you felt because you weren’t there for me and the other children you had.  I just didn’t feel like I could really share with you then my heart.  I was just so thankful to have finally got to meet you after 18 years of my life wondering what you were like.  That day I drove up to your house and saw Lesa playing in the yard. I wondered what it would have been like to be her.  She grew up in the house with you.

Today, I am choosing to feel all my feelings associated with you.  I am going to feel them fully and then I am going to let them go.  So many tears as I write.  I do forgive you and I am releasing all the pain and all the connections to that sad and hurt little girl.  I am giving her unconditional love, making sure she feels safe and heard.  I am going to sit with her for a while and just listen and hold her. I am not going to leave her until she feels safe and whole.  Then I am going to invite that little girl and all her wonder and childlike fun to come join me as an adult woman now. 

Dad, I love you and I truly forgive you.  I am releasing any connections to you or thoughts or memories that are not for my highest good.  I am only going to keep the good things.  I wish you well wherever you might be in your journey in whatever lifetime you are in now.  I am going to have a piece of key lime cheesecake and celebrate what would have been your 81st birthday had you still been in this lifetime.

Happy Birthday Dad, I love you,

Wendy your loving daughter