For those of you who’ve read my posts you know how central the estrangement from my daughter has been to my depression. I can’t think of anything that’s been so painful for so long. When I think I have a handle on it, I’ll read something, hear a song on the radio, someone will ask about her or something else will happen that makes me think of her and the void I have in my heart.

Parental Alienation Syndrome is a controversial diagnosis but after living through my estrangement and coming across PAS on the internet and reading the signs and symptoms, I can tell you it’s absolutely real. It’s one of the worst and most insidious forms of child abuse.

In response to my experience with my son and daughter and PAS I’ve decided to write a letter to my daughter. She will most probably never see or read it but after so many years I felt writing a letter might help get some of the sadness, sorrow and anger out of me and so loosen the grip of the black dog of depression.

Dear Sasha,

The last time we saw each other was a little over a year ago at your granny’s funeral mass. I was helping dad out that day and was standing by him greeting people as you came in to the church. It had been several years since I had seen you. You walked by me and didn’t say anything but bent down to hug your grandpa, your poppy. As you stood up, I made a point of hugging you and thanking you for coming to mom’s funeral and said it would have meant a lot to her. You and your brother Ben meant the world to your granny. You cried uncontrollably during the mass as did many of us. Afterwards you left the church without so much as a word to anyone. No one has heard from you since then and all of our hearts are broken.

It’s hard for me to comprehend what’s happened in your life that has caused you to turn your back on so many people that have only loved and accepted you unconditionally. No one has ever said so much as a cross word to you, let alone harmed you in any way, and yet you continue to exclude us from your life. We’re struggling to understand why.

The only link we have to you is through your cellphone, yet you screen your calls and never pick up or return our calls. We know what city you live in but no one knows your address so we can’t send you cards, flowers, Christmas or birthday presents. How can we share our lives with you, show you how much we love and care for you, when you won’t let us in? How long must we patiently wait for you to respond to our many gestures of reaching out? I am so afraid that you will think too many years have passed for you to reconnect with us but I want to assure you there is no end to our patience. As painful as it is, we will always be here for you. We will always love you.

Last Christmas I took a photo of you and your granny blowing bubbles, blew it up, matted and framed it for you. I had to give it to your brother Ben to deliver to you. He said you cried when you opened it and that he thought you really liked it. I hope you did but your brother’s words are all I have.

The day you came home from the hospital is a day forever burned in my mind and my heart. I’d always wanted to believe in unconditional love but I never knew it existed until you were born. On that day I experienced what it was like to love someone unconditionally. I knew then that no matter what would happen in this life, I would always love you and I still do.

From the day we first brought you home I was determined to be the best father that I could be. I fed, changed, bathed and dressed you. Many times in the middle of the night I would wake up and check on you, making sure you were okay. When you would wake up and cry in the morning, you would call for me and no matter how much your mom protested & told me to “Ignore her and go back to sleep” I couldn’t and would always get up and get you. I was in awe of you and the enormous responsibility I now had. There was no way I was going to fail at being your dad.

One night you had a 102 fever and you screamed and cried. Nothing I did seemed to sooth your pain. I was very worried about you and ended up calling the doctor who told me not to worry as babies ran higher temperatures than adults. He said to give you a tepid bath and some Tylenol. You were only 3 months old and really screamed in the cool bath water. It awakened the neighbor in the apartment next to us and she pounded on the wall as though you and I had conspired to keep her up. I pounded right back and she stopped!  I had bigger things to worry about than her lost sleep. When you were older and got sick I’d get a damp washcloth to cool your fever and you’d lay your head on my lap as we’d watch a movie together.

I read you stories and rocked you to sleep. When you got a little older I took you everywhere with me - on bike rides, to the park, the zoo and the lake where you fell in love with fishing (you later broke up with a boyfriend when he couldn’t bait his own hook!). I showed you the world a little bit at a time which seemed only fair as you (& later your brother) became my world. I could never do enough for you.

When we went for a walk and you fell and skinned your knee, you cried so much it scared your brother into crying too.  I ended up carrying both of you several blocks home which was harder than you’d think as you refused to bend your leg the entire time. When we got home your granny and I had to do a lot of talking to convince you that washing your knee and spraying Bactine on it wasn’t going to hurt. After wiping your tears and cleaning your skinned knee I made you comfortable on granny’s bed with a pillow under your knee and turned on some cartoons. Did I spoil you, maybe but you were never ill behaved. You were sensitive and caring. I loved being your dad and taking care of you. It was never any work for me.

You’ve always loved animals and wanted to save them. One day you found a little black lab mix puppy in the alley and asked if we could keep him. How could I say “No”?  We named him Marley.

One of your favorite games was one you made up called “dog catcher”. You and your brother would pretend to be dogs running loose and I was the mean dog catcher. You would hide and Marley and I would find you. I’d put you in the ‘pound’ and you’d escape and hide again. When a real dog catcher drove down our street one day, we stopped him and took your picture with him and his truck.

More than anything I wanted you and your brother to be happy - to have a fun & memorable childhood. Your granny and poppy were good parents to me but they weren’t as involved in any of our lives. I wanted to do more. I put an old fashioned rope swing in a huge Elm tree out in our front yard and had great fun pushing you ‘one more time’ in it.

Later on I built a big tree house in the Sweetgum tree in our backyard where you and your friends would play and camp out. When you got older and started to play the trumpet you’d go up there to practice. It must have paid off as you were wildly successful in the High School marching band and Jazz band.

You wanted to know how to break a board like I did in Karate class, so I set up some bricks on the patio and bought some pine boards. After setting a board across the top of the bricks, I showed you how to hold your fist, position your body and how to strike the board. Your first attempt didn’t work. I realized that you didn’t believe you could do it, so you pulled your punch. You needed to believe in yourself, so I told you to get ‘mad’ at that board like it was our wicked neighbor who’d mistreated a cat or someone else you were mad at - to take your frustrations out on the board.

You got worked up and before I knew it, POW! That board flew apart. Your eyes were so wide and you got so excited screaming, “I did it! I did it!” You couldn’t wait to show everyone at school. The next time you came over you had to show me the board and all of your friend’s autographs on it. I was proud to have helped show you how to put your mind to something you really wanted to do and do it. I still have that board.

These little slices of life may seem like small events but they’re really not. They are what makes up a life and I thought ours was pretty good. When I look back at our life during your childhood, this is what I see. There are so many wonderful memories like these, they will stay with me forever. The only bad things I remember came soon after your mom and I divorced. You were only 4 years old but you never wanted to go back to your mom’s house when our every-other-weekend visits ended. I literally had to pry you off of me crying. It was one of the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do.

Several years ago your cousin Diane talked you into coming to a family Halloween party where you seemed genuinely happy to see me. It had been years since we had seen each other and we ended up talking for several hours. You confided in me that although you were in college and working on a nursing degree, you really didn’t want to do that but were only doing it because your mom had pressured you too.

You were more interested in a career in law enforcement (your costume that night was a police officer’s) or the military but your mom didn’t want you to do that. You were also very upset over having to take a human anatomy class because a friend from High School had just died and you were afraid that you would think about him when you saw the cadavers in class. You didn’t think you could separate the body you had to dissect from the person it used to be. You cried and said you just wanted to help people.

Talking together that night was like letting a Genie out of a bottle. You had so much bottled up inside of you that once we started talking it poured out.  I listened to you and said that there are a lot of ways for you to help people besides nursing, that I would support you no matter what you wanted to do. What mattered to me was your happiness. We hugged and told each other “I love you.” I wish that the evening could’ve gone on forever. Your cousin Diane told me later that you said the same thing to her.

Over the years I’ve shed a lot of tears worrying about you, missing you. Wondering what it was I did or didn’t do, said or didn’t say. I thought this was the breakthrough I’d been waiting and praying for. I lost no time in trying to keep the momentum going by staying in contact with you through email but once again there was no response. There was only silence.

Aside from that Halloween, we’ve not seen each other much since you were 14. I was, and still am, very worried about you. You don’t go from a healthy close relationship with your father to nothing overnight. To extend this estrangement to your granny & poppy, aunts, uncles and cousins is both heart-breaking and wrong. When I had forced your mom to get you in counseling over this, the counselor told me that something traumatic had happened to you but that she couldn’t get it out of you without risking re-traumatizing you. I wanted so badly to do something to help you but until you or your mom would talk, there was nothing I could do.

If I sound angry & frustrated it’s because I am. For the last 8 years I’ve swallowed my sadness, hurt, anger & worry while trying to be patient and bide my time in the hope that you would come around. All it did was to cause a very deep depression that has rippled out to affect everyone in the family. I’ve sent you cards & presents and left several phone messages all in an attempt to stay in contact; to let you know you’re loved unconditionally and will always be welcome back. Your aunts, uncles and cousins have all tried too and have met with the same results. Sasha, I really tried to be a good dad but I feel like I’ve failed you and I don’t know why. I tried to stay as involved in your life as possible and yet it apparently wasn’t enough.

We don’t know what you’ve been through but we want to understand. We want to help. We’ve tried to help, to talk to you, to listen, but all we get is silence. We don’t know what else we can do.

From the moment of your birth, even before you were born when I talked to you in the womb and made a sculpture of your mother’s belly - I’ve always loved you without conditions Sasha. I will always love you, even if you continue to walk away. Like the story of the prodigal son, I hope someday you’ll return. Our hearts are aching, your family is waiting.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 8:30 pm and is filed under family, father-daughter, forgiveness, history, link, love.