9/24/21

It’s been 5 months and 6 days since your passing. Since then, my grief for you hasn’t lessened a bit. I have spoken to you a handful of times since then, though it was always outspoken. I’m writing this one for my emotional benefit, as my therapist has encouraged. Maybe this way I can get deeper feelings out, maybe focus my thoughts a little bit more so this session is more therapeutic. Normally when I talk with you, my emotions get so big and swollen that they suffocate me, I lose track of what I’m supposed to be doing and why I’m doing it. Instead, I shut down from the lack of air and begin an OCD trip. Here’s to trying something different. Here’s to better expression. Here’s to healing.

It’s hard losing a loved one. I would say losing a loved one is even harder when you have a stepfamily that treats you very poorly. I don’t even like referring to them as step-family. They are the Sabins. As it should be. Family actually means something to me and they don’t deserve any title of Family. I know I shouldn’t, but I blame you for their poor behavior. I blame you for my broken heart. You are the one that chose not to reunite with your wife of 20+ years. We had a solid, truthful, raw conversation just months before you died as to why you chose to divorce her. You have very good reasoning regarding your choice and I prop you for choosing for yourself for once in your life. Though, you sought out an older woman who not only behaved and did things that you purposely left your wife for, but was even more of a problem. You are the one that brought her into your life, you brought her family into your life. You brought them into my life. You asked me to open my heart and accept them as family just as you did. You asked me to open my door to my family for you, for them. I took a chance on them. I opened my heart and my door to let them in because I love and trust you. I trusted you with my heart, my family, and our safety.

In the beginning, I tried desperately hard to keep them and you close as families are. I feared being replaced. I feared rejection. I feared a broken family. With their redneck, white-trash ways, their drama, their gossip, their vengeful and grudging ways, I chose to look the other way to keep the peace. I feared being on their bad side for what consequences and treatment they would so willingly and kindly serve me. So, I involved them, invited them, encouraged them, supported them, and loved them. I did all that, despite how I felt inside, for you. For your happiness. For us, yours and my relationship. And this is how I am repaid? This is my reward? This is what I get for sacrificing? For sleepless nights, expending so much stress on your behalf? After a couple of years of being mistreated and manipulated by the Sabins, I started to distance myself from Sandra’s children. I couldn’t deal with the drama and idiocy of them. Sandra still faked her way for a couple more years to come. I thought she truly loved and cared for me. I opened up, confided in her, I was vulnerable with her about very personal struggles I was going through, including the hardship with my own mother. I knew she had a side to her that her children inherited, but I never thought she would turn on me the way she has. The hardest part is knowing that you knew exactly who they were and what they were/are capable of. Not just as a bystander, but as the victim yourself. Yet, you did nothing.

Dad, I know that you were sick in your mortal body and could only understand and do so much here. Your disease definitely gave you limitations, but you still had agency. You still knew right from wrong. You still had a voice. You still had a choice. Though you said nothing. You chose nothing. You did nothing. As a result, you suffered greatly, I suffered greatly. You were a victim, I am a victim. You came to an end in your life, free of suffering from not only your disease and limitations but from the Sabins, from being their victim. As for me, I am not so lucky. Every day I live with the pain and hurt they caused me all those months ago. Compiled with all the annoyance and pain they’ve cause the last 7 years. Why? Because they continue to choose their ways and I haven’t figured out how to let go of the pain and suffering they caused. I feel trapped, under their spell. I feel like Cinderella in the fact of having an evil stepmother and step-siblings who treat me horribly. The only difference is the Sabins try to do so with smiles on their face as if I was blinded to their ways as if they truly care for me. At least the fairy tale characters actually own up to their ways. Major eye roll inserted here. Amateur manipulators right there.

These last few months have been just that, months. Yet each month feels like a year. Enduring all the time and seasons of a year compacted into a month’s worth of time. It makes me wonder if life will always feel like this. If I will ever overcome this trial. If I am destined to this misery forever as some form of punishment. 

This whole traumatic experience, losing you, how they treated me, and the ramifications thereof cut me deep. Leaving my soul bleeding from the core. Hemrrohging uncontrollably. The pain, the sadness, the hurt, the betrayal, the suffering, the obsessive thoughts, the obsessive feelings, it all comes spewing out from the deep within. Something I feel, think, and experience every.single.day. This. What you left me with. How you left me with this is.not.fair. How could you do this to me? After everything I’ve done for you...

All my energy every day is spent playing defense against these oozing, pulsing feelings from within the depths of my core.  I’m left in survival mode, doing the bare minimum of responsibilities and expectations simply because I am tired. No, I am exhausted and worn down. I deserve better. My family deserves better. You. You brought this upon me, upon my family and you aren’t even here to express my anger towards you. You aren’t here to listen. You aren’t even here to fix this, to stand by me. You’re not here to do what you should have done when you had the chance, to say what you needed to, to chose what you needed to and to stand up for me. You aren’t even here to express your love, sorrow and to apologize for what you’ve brought upon me, the agony I’m living.

I know that you were incapable of doing anything more than you did in your life time, especially there at the end, but it doesn’t eleviate anything and it certainly doesn’t make what you did or didn’t do okay. Though I’m grateful for what has come from this knowledge.

I have only visit your grave in Salem once. It only happened because your sweet son-in-law tricked/surprised me for a date night. I’m grateful your headstone wasn’t there. From what I hear, ALL of you “children” will be on it. Including your step-kids taking precedence. That disgusts me. I hate that I have to share you with people like them. I’ve had you for 30 years, they’ve had you for 7. They don’t deserve all they have. I know that night in the cemetery I said some really raw and hurtful things. I want you to know that I still feel those intensely, but I have also allowed love to creep into my heart. I’m happy that your burial plot in Provo has the headstone you and Mom ordered. If I feel the need to ‘see’ you, I go there. That is the safe place. A place I don’t have to share you or the space with the Sabins. I was really upset about you not being buried in Provo, but now that I’ve come to this realization, I’m actually happy about it. I hate having to share anything with the Sabins. I know this plot won’t always be empty-holding your place for me. I know the headstone won’t always be there either, as sad as that is, I’m happy I have it while it lasts. Please visit me there when I come to visit.

I know that you love me. I know that I am your amazing beautiful daughter, as you would say or introduce me to your friends. I know that I have a special place in your heart. I know that you wouldn’t want me to suffer or hurt. I know that you care for me. Where you didn’t do anything for my suffering I do question your love for me from time to time. I know I shouldn’t listen to the small voice inside my head that tells me that the Sabins are right, that you love and cared for them more, but your ations kind of validate that. That they did replace me. That they are the daughters you wish you had while I’m the scum of the earth. That all my love and efforts weren’t worth 2 cents. I know that it isn’t true, though I whole-heartedly wish you could come and confirm my heart. Some family members have had spiritual experiences with you since that day in the hospital, though I haven’t much. I wonder if you visit the Sabins more, and if so, why? I feel so alone, isolated and outcasted by you. Do I deserve this, too? After all the love and support I’ve given you the last 15 years, when no-one else was there for you?

You have broken my heart.

I looked up to you.

I love you.

I wrote this poem weeks after your death. Both physical and emotional pain blended together came out in this form:

They say it is hard losing a loved one. 

I can confirm that it is true. 

My dad’s love was always there that never, ever withdrew. 

Now that he’s no longer more, 

I shed tears because 

This has shaken me to my core.

I hate the mess he left behind

All sticky and unfair

I must walk away and resign

Does he even care?

Can he see the suffering his actions have brought on

All I want is peace and love

And safety to grieve you, John

Instead, there’s a bad taste in my mouth

That toothpaste and mouthwash can’t fix.

Sunlight falls heavy

I hear voices crying out

I’m feeling more and more unsteady

I stumble in the dark,

Always tripping over the false heart

Dire for the still and silence

Anything to keep them quiet

I get down on my knees for guidance

I ponder the times I felt His grace

The peace, the love, the calm

Though it won't make things erase

It can heal this wounded heart

And no more fall apart.

I have had mountains in my past

Some of them I never thought

The hard climb I could ever do

Including this one that I face

But I can with help of His great grace and you.

I need you Dad. I need your love. I can’t get through this alone. I’ve ran and ran from all of this for so long and it’s taken quite the toll on me. I can’t suffer through the silence anymore. There will be other letters to come. A sweet friend of mine suggested writing a lot and creating a book. Filled with the good and the ugly. An expression of my soul through this transforming time in my life. I can assure you, despite the main emotion in this letter, the truth is I do love you. Unconditionally love you. I miss you. I’m happy you’re at peace and at one with yourself. Thank you for giving me life and loving me throughout it. I will get through this, I will overcome this. Time and love heals everything.

Until next time,

Love your daughter,

Binnee Mawee-Mawee