Most of your life, you have masqueraded your pain with anger.

Angry that your dad left,
Angry that your mom had to shift her focus to work,
Angry about your adoption,
Angry and bitter about past lovers and ones that never were.

Refusal for therapy, doors ripped clean off their hinges, the most venomous words, and even more terrifying actions.

You were so consumed by deep sadness that you could only translate in to rage,

so wounded by the ones that left,


you punished the ones who stayed.


For the last 10 years, I’ve known your hurt feelings to be so vast and expressed in so many different ways, that it was practically a limb to you,

a mess that others would constantly have to tiptoe around and clean up after.


Abandonment was a box you were given so early in life, a sort of “anti-gift” that cut you so deeply.

So tell me,

Why would you turn around,

and hand that box,




To our daughter?