Dear Father,

Or should I call you that?

Were you really a father to me, or simply a mere memory.

Of someone I dreamed would be.

But this letter isn’t a poem to you.

I wrote one to mother months ago, and every week I’ve been pondering whether I should write one to you. I never know what to say to you, or what memories to reminisce, simply because there are none.

Yes, you were a father, but biologically only. You weren’t a father until you had to be. Until, you got the call that mom had died, and you suddenly had to drop that neglectful act and realize you had two kids to raise whom you left behind.

But according to you, you never left us behind, did you?

You’d send $500 a month to keep us barely below the poverty line. You’d take us on Sundays to shopping malls and Jamba Juice trips in hopeless attempts to buy our love and respect, but those are feelings that cannot be bought.

They are earned, but you didn’t earn them.

Yes, I loved you the way any daughter unconditionally loves their father, but there was nothing else to love.

You missed dance performances for business trips, and movie nights during computer drifts.

I have no memory of you besides the fragments of moments spread over the years of my childhood, a childhood I long to forget.

Do I miss you? I wish I could say yes, but there’s nothing left to miss. Yes, you were better than mom, at least at parenting, but at least mom was there. At least she left knowing that she’d always be in my mind.

I wish I could pour my heart into this letter like I did for mom, but I simply can’t. She changed my life, but you weren’t around enough to do that.

I know you tried your best. I really thank you for that. You did everything you could to keep my childhood intact.

You were pure at heart, but for a child who was ignored desperately, pleading for an escape, it would never be enough.

As much as I loved you, like any daughter loves a father…

You’d never be enough.