Why I Forgave My Father: My Journey To Healing From My Past
Photo by gentina danurendra
Forgiveness isn’t something you can just do—it takes time, and every stage offers a window of opportunity for healing and closure. Reflecting on my father's forgiveness journey, I am reminded how profoundly fatherlessness defined me. This healing hasn’t merely been about accepting old wounds and re-discovering my feminine power, a source of energy that finally allowed me to abandon the pain and find my balance.
Understanding the Impact of Fatherlessness
I was a girl from the daddy’s day, bonding with my father in a way that no child who believes their parent is a superhero could. But our family fell apart after my mother broke up with my father because he kept cheating on her. As she moved on with her life, a struggle took place that I could not even begin to imagine. My mother, scarred and aloof, would not let my father near her. When she married again, my stepfather joined in, leaving my father unable to see us.
These conflicts hovered like a storm over my childhood, looming in darkness that I did not fully grasp. I remember nights of yelling when windows in our bedrooms broke. My father sometimes tried to pull me and my little brother out of that trap – a desperate and chaotic attempt at rescue. Eventually, over the years, his drug and alcohol abuse took him over, leaving us both fatherless beyond words. It was a time of unresolved questions and a gnawing abandonment.
Fatherlessness profoundly impacts children, particularly daughters, who often don’t trust or respect themselves in adulthood. This void defined how I thought about love and caused my relationship problems. Dad’s absence filled space in my heart and left behind angst and doubts that would remain for years to overcome.
Divine Feminine Energy for Healing?
Decades later, as I reached adulthood and began understanding myself, I sought comfort in my goddess feminine energy. Accepting this version of myself made me see that healing took care, forgiveness, and kindness for me and my dad. The feminine angel inside me called me to face the hurt and the unsolved, telling me I could find closure without everything coming in the proper order.
Along this path, I saw my dad one day on the north side of Milwaukee on my way to church. He was out and about, stoned, blinded by the fog that addiction had whipped up over the years. I held my breath, but something commanded me to slow down. After years of silence, I had disappeared when he got into my car. They connected briefly, and he silently apologized for not being there. This was a brutal, unexpected confession that would break my heart when I cried later that evening alone.
I often wonder what he had been thinking then, what memories or regrets might have at last surfaced. Maybe he had just been trying to find his way home like me.
Why To Forgive is Critical to Creating Inner Peace
Forgiving my father was not an acceptance of hurt or the past. It was about unbinding the grasp his absence left on me. Forgiving him allowed me to break out of fatherlessness and discover my value. It was with compassion and forgiveness that I finally experienced a peace I hadn’t felt since I was a little girl.
Fatherlessness was scarred, but recovery has allowed me to recognize that my father was flawed and wounded. God’s feminine energy has helped me forgive him and myself, breaking a pattern and allowing love and empathy to flourish.
Forgiveness may take years, but it is worth it. If a father’s absence burdens you, know that you can heal and move on. To forgive is to free ourselves, to let the scars of our past turn into the power that steers our present.
The Wrap-Up: Accepting the Healing Process
To forgive a parent (particularly a father) is a highly personal and painful process. But healing and forgiveness give us room for something more, an opportunity to retell our narrative and believe in our power. And that is the path that continues, to me, forward with the guidance and control of the divine feminine.
