Did you know that I sat down with your first boyfriend? He was a good boy, and came to ask permission from me before he courted you. We talked about what would make you happy, and I told him about all the things you loved, and all the things that mattered to you.
All the things that I knew but I didn’t know how to give myself.
He was a wonderful boy. Bright and attractive, and enamored with you.
I fell into a depression when you left him, for I knew he could give you the happiness you so deserved. I never knew your other men, but I knew of them.
I knew you cried for help; I knew you were calling for me to love you, but I did not know the words or the actions that would save you.
I loved you, my daughter, but I never learned how to love.
I would watch, helpless and lost, each time you came home. I wringed my hands and pulled at my hair and I wept in my room, wept for my princess, for what men who didn’t love you had done to you.
I loved you, my daughter, but I never learned how to love.
Your mother left us that year, with your younger sisters.
We never loved each other, did you know? In our younger, more lustful days, we conceived your older sister before we were ready. Before I knew how to love. She didn’t love me, and I didn’t love her, and it soon became too much for us.
But you, my daughter, I loved.
I knew of your nocturnal activities. I heard the rumors. I saw the signs.
I heard your nightly exertions through the thing walls of our home, and I lay awake in bed, anguished. I didn’t know what to do, my daughter. I didn’t know what to do, or what to say. The more you tried to reach out to me, the further away you fell, and I did not know the words or actions that would bring me to you.
I showered you with presents – the car you drove, the pretty things you liked to wear. I bought you everything your heart desired, I gave you everything I knew how to give. I loved you in the only ways I knew how.
I loved you, my daughter, but I never learned how to love.
I knew everything, my daughter. A father always knows, but I did not know what to do. How to reach out. How to save you.
I loved you, my daughter. For the love of God, I love you with all of my heart and my soul.
It was in desperation that I sent you away. I loved you so much, that I could not bear to see what had happened to the sweet, beautiful princess that I loved so much. It pained me that I had destroyed when all I ever wanted in life was to love you.
But I never learned how to love.
You were my rock, my reason for being, and when you left, I fell sick. All the life was sucked out of me, but you were safe, and that was all that mattered to me.
Bust still I clung on, hoping against hope that you would need me and I could be there. I clung on, fighting for life in an empty house, until I was too weak to even attend your wedding. They had to wrestle me onto my hospital bed, did you know? I was shouting and crying for you. I wanted to be there, to look into the eyes of the man who would take my place and care for you for the rest of your life. I had to content myself with watching the video, which your mother had sent me.
I cannot have been more proud, seeing at my beautiful little girl who had become a woman, and the man standing at her side, gazing at you with the same eyes I laid upon you when you first drew breath.
I was content, then, and shed no tears. I knew that I could rest, for you had found someone who could keep you safe in ways that I never could.
Forgive me, my daughter, for never learning how to love.
I feared emotion, you see. I feared its fragility, its ephemeralness. In the dark, joyless emptiness of my childhood, emotion was something to be cherished. I would keep it in a tiny box in my heart, I would keep it safe, until in the privacy of my own solitude, I could take it out, oh so carefully, and cradle it in my hands and hold it close to my breast where nobody could take it away. I would handle it gently, for I feared its brightness would be diminished in the bright light of day.
I wish I had learned how to love.
Now, in my dying days, alone as in my childhood, my little box of treasures brings me comfort. I thank you, my dear daughter, for filling it with your joy, laughter, pride, and even your pain and tears. I make no excuses for not knowing how to love. But do know although I never learned how to show it, I loved you truly and deeply in my own way.
Raise your child in happiness, and in love, my daughter. Never let her cry love me, mother. Love me, father.
Goodbye, my daughter. I loved you, I truly did, and I hope you will forgive an old man who never learned how to love.
Yours Truly,
Your Father