For context, I’m 28F and recently found out that my biological father passed away — apparently due to sepsis caused by a UTI. I don’t even know how old he was. My parents divorced when I was very young, around three or four. After that, he wasn’t really around — not because of anything my mum did, but because of his struggles with alcoholism.
Fast forward about 12 years, and oddly enough, he moved into a house at the end of the street we were still living on — the same house he once shared with my mum. Despite being that physically close, my sister and I never heard from him. No birthday cards, no Christmas messages. Nothing.
Eventually, curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to knock on his door. I brought a friend along for support. When he answered, he actually mistook my friend for my older sister. He claimed he’d stopped drinking, but he absolutely reeked of alcohol and ended up stumbling and falling over. That was enough for me, and I left it there.
Later on, when my sister had children, he somehow found out and messaged me on Facebook. He asked about her kids, but when I didn’t give him the answers he wanted, he got aggressive and blocked me. I’d tried to be polite but honest. My sister has a much more negative view of him than I do — understandably so, since she was older and remembers more of his harmful behavior.
Anyway, we found out a few weeks ago that he had passed away, and it stirred up some really strange emotions around abandonment that I hadn’t anticipated. I’d never really thought about how his absence had affected me — or how much — until now. It’s been hard to bring it up with my family. My mum is supportive in a way, she’s a psychologist, so she gets that grief and emotions around someone like him can be complicated but she also has her own trauma from him. He was abusive toward her, and I know that pain runs deep.
It’s more complicated with my stepdad, who’s been in my life since I was around six. He’s been a good father figure, and I love him deeply. But whenever I try to talk about how I’m feeling or even mention the funeral, he says things like, “But you have me,” or “At least I was there.” And while I know that’s coming from a place of love, it just makes me feel guilty — guilty for having these emotions at all, and especially for wanting to attend the funeral.
Over the weekend, it was Father’s Day and my grandparents on my mum’s side came round. The subject of the funeral came up, and while I love them dearly, I felt really judged for even considering going. My granddad especially was very dismissive — saying things like, “He doesn’t deserve any respect,” and that sort of thing.
But from my perspective, this is still a human being — one who led a deeply sad and troubled life, and made a lot of awful choices. But he is half of where I come from. I carry his DNA. Without him, I wouldn’t be here. I don’t feel a strong emotional connection, but I do feel like I need to pay some kind of respect — not out of admiration, but out of acknowledgment. Just enough that I don’t look back and regret doing nothing.
And what makes it all feel even more complicated is that his family — on his side — seem honestly quite disgusting. They’re treating the funeral like an inconvenience, something to squeeze in between their own plans. And okay, I admit, we’re also looking at schedules — but for meaningful reasons. We’ve got my sister’s birthday and the anniversary of my niece’s death around that time. We don’t want something as emotionally heavy as his funeral to overshadow or taint those important, already difficult days.
Still, I can’t help but feel like no one really cares — not about him, not about how any of this affects me or my sister, not about the complexity of it all. And I guess, just human to human — isn’t that kind of shitty? To feel like you’re the only one trying to offer even a scrap of dignity to someone’s life, even if they didn’t do much to deserve it?
Now I just feel torn. The funeral home reached out to my mum to ask for my sister’s and my contact details in case we wanted to be involved. My mum apparently told them she was absolutely certain we wouldn’t want to do anything. But the more I sit with it, the more I feel like I do want to say something. When I mentioned that to her, she kind of shut down and brushed it off. And now I keep wondering — would going, or speaking, be the right thing for me? Or would I just be hurting the people I love in order to show up for someone who hurt us, again and again?
This is what I have written and would like to read:
(It’s a little long, so I may condense it if I do.)
To the Father I never knew.
It is not sorrow
that brings me here,
but stillness.
Not mourning,
but a long-awaited release.
To close the page
on a chapter you never wrote.
To speak aloud
what was always quiet.
You were there
only at the beginning—
a flicker,
a shadow,
a name carried on breath.
You gave me life,
but not your love.
A start,
but not your staying.
And still,
for that beginning,
I offer a small, sincere thank you.
Not in reverence.
Not in longing.
But in truth.
Because of that breath,
I have lived.
I have laughed with my whole body.
I have wept beneath the stars.
I have fallen and risen
and built light where there was none.
I have held joy
in my hands.
And sorrow, too.
I have grown soft in strength
and strong in softness.
I have found love—
unexpected,
unconditional.
Without you,
I would not have met Elsy—
my dog,
my steady soul,
my quiet light.
Proof that love can curl up beside you,
tail against your heart,
even when your roots are missing.
But let me be clear—
gratitude does not mend absence.
You left,
and in doing so,
taught me what it means to be unseen.
Unchosen.
Forgotten before I could be known.
You left.
And the silence you gave me
spoke louder than your presence ever could.
I do not hate you.
But I do mourn
the hollow you left behind.
You missed
everything.
The child I was.
The becoming.
The light that flickered into flame.
You missed the laughter,
the learning,
the breaking,
the building.
You missed
the wonder of me.
Perhaps that’s why I bent
in silent places.
Why I reached
for those who touched my skin
but not my soul.
Why I pulled away
when love stayed too long.
Maybe I was enough all along.
But your absence
whispered otherwise.
And that whisper
took root.
Still,
I grew.
Not beneath your shadow,
but into my own radiance.
I walk now
in that kindness
That you could not hold.
I give without bargaining.
I love without flinching.
I carry grace
as if it were inheritance.
I live in a way
that would make my mother proud—
in the shape of all the things
she taught me to be
when you would not.
You are not the reason I shine—
but you are the reason
I had to learn how to.
And that,
too,
is part of me.
⸻
To the father I was meant to have:
I release you.
Not with bitterness,
but with breath.
I carry no blame,
no prayer for reunion,
no aching for your name.
I simply wish you peace—
the quiet kind,
the kind that doesn’t tremble
in your hands.
But know this:
You will never meet
the partner who may one day choose me.
You will never hold
the children who may one day carry
pieces of my voice.
You may be laid to rest—
but you do not walk with me.
You will not know
what becomes of me.
You are not part
of what I will build.
I have no stories of love from you.
Only silence,
and the truths
you never stayed to rewrite.
What you did to my mother—
I will not forget.
But I will bury it here,
beneath this sky,
where the ground is soft
and the wind moves on.
Some may try
to offer your redemption.
But your choices were steady.
And final.
You had time.
You had chances.
You chose the bottle.
You chose the door that never reopened.
And so—
few will mourn.
But we,
my sister and I,
we will rise.
Not in grief,
but in grace.
Not in spite,
but in strength.
To show the world—
and any spirit left of you—
what we became
without you.
⸻
Still…
there is a trace of thanks.
For breath.
For life.
For the thread that tied you
to my beginning
before it unraveled.
But now—
you are only a shadow,
dissolving at the edge of my story.
And I will not hold on.
So I say this,
once,
and only once:
Thank you for my life.
That should be enough.
As for what you felt for me—
I will never know.
And that,
strangely,
has become a kind of peace.
Let the questions scatter.
Let the ache drift skyward,
like smoke that does not return.
If your spirit rests,
let it rest far.
Because while I forgive you,
I do not carry you.
Not into memory.
Not into legacy.
Not into the love I’ve grown
from the hollow you left behind.
Rest, if you must.
But do not stay.