Message in a Bottle

Back in May, I sent a paper hand back into past to retrieve what has been forgotten or misremembered before it was too late. Much of my life has been about too late, and the power of forgiveness as well as the pain of holding a grudge too tight to your heart that it breaks.

Today, my answer came in a plain white envelope with all too familiar handwriting even after close to thirty years of angry silence. Instead of answers, I am left with more questions than answers. I still don't know my father's side of the story as to why he left us other than infidelity and noncommunication were the causes. Since I have heard accusations that my mother cheated on my father with our babysitter, who was our minister's son, and with my father's friend, who later became my stepfather for a while, during the divorce and my mother's claims that she found letters that he cheated on her with his students and the woman who became his second wife afterwards, I have no clue as to what happened. I need details. I feel I have the right to know the truth or at least everyone's version of it.

Their divorce and the aftermath bent and shaped my psyche. I can lay my fear of abandonment at the feet of those who abandoned me first, my parents.