An open letter….

Disclaimer – Take this in anyway you wish, it may or may not be applied to real persons. It may or may not be applied to persons in relation to me. It may just be creative writing and all completely made up. Only those who know me, will know for sure.

I have been through the mill as a mother these past months with two kids in great need of special attention and care and we are getting through. I have been very reflective of parenthood as a whole and I finally feel this is a topic I can brooch, without feeling anymore on the subject.

 

Dear Sperm donor.

You were there at my conception, possibly my birth. I have not bothered asking my mother about that detail as it’s so very unimportant to me.

You see you were ‘there’ for the first few years of my life, but not really in a very active parental role. You worked away, you had your evening pursuits, selfish ones that never included us, and my memories are profoundly mother and sibling orientated. Hell, I had more time with the neighbours than you. So much so, I can remember more vividly the times in my elderly friends back garden than any one happy time with you.

What I do remember is your indifference, sometimes your cruelty. Your violent temper and nasty tongue. Your methods of exacting punishments. That even when you were around, as a girl, I was ignored for the most part as though you had no clue what to do. Well… for the most part.

I remember the other things, when you were making your presence very known in our little quaking house and the reverberations of those memories that shook my foundations for many years. My anger issues and years of healing are a nod to your parenting expertise.

Well done for such a great job. NOT

There was a whole mess of things – separation, custody battles, accusations, child protection, new marriages and such …. and then you were just gone.

Sort of.

See the  drama, rumours, nasty messages through family and such… they continued for a long time after, even though my mum tried to hide it all from us. I have ears and eyes you see.  I just wished you would crawl back under your stone. And the showing up to things you had no right to come to in the past years of my adulthood. Inviting yourself to things you could gain something from. Not because of us, no way. Hell would have to freeze over first before your actual children became a priority.

It’s not that you died, although I may actually care more now if that had been the case and could excuse all your sins because you had. It’s just. I feel we lost our usefulness as a weapon to hurt my mother, when she got us back. When the children were the ones who told people we didn’t want to be with you.

I feel that you had your focus on new wives, new kids and you severed a loose end. Four of them. We only had a use when we chased you like little puppy dogs and adored you from afar. When we could do something for you.

Well not me… I always had more sense.

You tell people you tried… I was old enough to remember – The whole one time you took us for access. Then you never came back. Not that we were missing much. You dumped us outside to play in the street I grew up in and we were told we couldn’t come in the house as your new baby was sleeping. The neighbour kept us until dinner and then you took us back home. I only remember seeing you in the two car journeys that day and you never spoke to us the whole time. You never even made sure we ate food through the day.

What you don’t know is that every week we got ready, and sat outside and waited, well my baby brother lasted a lot longer than I did. Bless his little sad soul. A full six Saturdays in a row. I know because I counted the weeks. I told my diary what a tosser you were even though I knew my mum would give me a row for using such language.

My eldest two brothers didn’t even want to see you by then, and called him dumb for keeping on waiting. I sat beside him and waited too, for him though, not for me.

He was three years younger, and in the days of darkness within your walls I had become his protector and mother figure. So I sat with him when he cried and asked ‘Will he be here soon?’ And even at Nine years old I knew, but I couldn’t say it to him. I would say ‘Maybe if we play for a while, he might just be late.’
I coaxed him from that step by noon most weeks, but only to find he would not stray away from where he could see it.

He cannot even remember that now. He has forgotten all of those things. Thankfully, he has no memories of being in your house.

You never came, you never called, you offered no excuses.

Even bastard fathers are missed by broken little kids.

In all these years I have been told over and over how you blame my mother for your absence. How she made it hard. How she poisoned our minds against you and I want to say this loud and clear.

I was mature in the mind at the age of five, normal for children who live in dysfunctional families – I listened, I watched and absorbed everything. I witnessed and received.

I lived the life you like to deny.

I. Forgot. NOTHING!

Just because I was the silent one, doesn’t mean I was unconscious for nine years.

Not once did my mother ever say a word against you, even though she had plenty she could have said, when it came to us. In fact, even now, 30 odd years on, she still tries to encourage us to have some sort of relationship with you. She is old school and believes a sperm donor should have some connection to their offspring, despite how awful he truly is, and I continually teach her that is not true.

You were never the victim in that situation. EVER.

I get no benefit what so ever of having a connection to you. You would only mar my children’s lives and leave them feeling a fraction of what you made us feel. That’s a fraction too much in my eyes.

She told us nothing. Not one thing. She never needed to. She had the sense to know we could remember it all. Something you do not seem to comprehend in anyway. You act as though we were asleep all those years. We all have our own memories, and the court documents on the divorce she kept all these years, as her only voice in this situation, because she never wanted to jade us.

Even though she had no reason to protect you.

Yet four children on their own, made the choice by themselves! What does that tell you?  – You WERE and ARE a waste of our time.

No one knows what goes on behind closed doors and the half side of a story you tell people is pathetic.

You still sing the victim card about how we were ripped from you , we moved house, you could not find us, we cut you off, she stands in your way – woe, woe, woe,  is me.

You know, like how you were the victim the night you took a kitchen knife to my step dad, and threw me over a fence into a rose bush full of thorns, after attacking my heavily pregnant mother in front of us!! She had to go to hospital that night.

You never change.

Still.

Here’s the facts.

We lived in that same house for 3 whole years in which you did not come for your court approved access. You never paid one payment of Child maintenance for any of us, I know because a lawyer asked me If I wanted to pursue back payments of all those years after you got your pay off. I don’t want anything from you.

We did not change phone numbers in the house you never called. My mother never intervened in anyway, yet dutifully got us ready when we asked with no words of ‘you know he wont come’. My brother held on at six years old for six whole weeks, before he realised toy cars held more interest and playing in muddy puddles than sitting on a doorstep watching an empty road.

We all got over it. On the surface anyway.

We lived with you when she was fighting for us. YEARS of our lives. Yet you stopped giving a crap the second we were not your problem. Stop lying about what you did.

I never bonded to you, even as a child. My mother and brothers were my world and you did so many bad things to the people I loved in front of me. I had to rely on you for survival for three years while she was gone, and that is as far as it went. It’s probably why I have been the least affected by your absence and I can write this now; because you stir no feelings in me anymore.

I gave up caring over 25 years ago. I have no emotional response to a person who doesn’t deserve it.

I watch the effects on my brothers though, and the small scars, from neglect, abuse, from having a father walk away after being a part of their existence for many years; and for that I will never forgive you. Before my brother died he told me how he wasted years of his life trying to build a bridge and how he regretted ever trying. He was done with you. Wanted no more from a man who is incapable of being what he wanted. Then he died and you use it as a reason to play broken father of the century. I removed you from OUR memorial group because your posts made me sick to my stomach. You have no clue what conversation went on between us leading to his death. NO CLUE.

I removed you from my Facebook after being coaxed to accept you, because all you did within the first twelve hours was attack my sister and cause drama. Threatened her with violence. What a shock!

YOU DID. Not her!!!

I forgive nothing.

Not for the bruises, the cruel words or the other memories ingrained in all of us.

You were a shitty person.

A worse father.

I got free.

I thank the stars for the day I got to leave your hell hole with my baby brother by the hand. My older brothers ran away from you long before. What does that say?

You may not be the same person for your new family that you were for us, so they say, and for that I am happy for them. Truly. I harbor no ill will to them at all. I am grateful for your new wife, for trying to make the best of a situation when she came into it. I am grateful to the step siblings who tried to also navigate an awful situation although they too have been led to believe we are the enemy. We are not. We were all innocent children caught up in adult affairs that touched all of us.

One thing you should know though.

When you showed up for financial gain over my brothers death, I was livid. I’m over it. Just know it will never happen in terms of me – it’s in my will you see.

Or at the funerals where you blanked me and offered my brothers around me a drink and acted like I wasn’t there.

No matter what way I go or what happens – only my actual Dad (the step father who raised me all my life. The man who clothed us, fed us, hugged us, took us to many parks and happy memories. Who stepped up where you failed. The man who no matter what, travels hundreds of miles to help us in need at the drop of a hat. The man you poison people against as ruining your life – Don’t make me laugh.) He gets the title and the pay out should I ever leave this world. You cannot fake a relationship that was never there when it comes to me. You won’t get a penny.

You see – the fiercly protective, family orientated trait in all my Carrero men – was taught to me by my step dad.

My real family – the ones who bothered to stay with us through all the years, no matter the distance, the situations or the fall outs. The ones who time and again will overcome all hurdles to be a part of our lives. THOSE are who you should take note of and aspire to be.

Yeah I know, you became a good dad to your new family and your new baby. So I keep being told. That does not excuse anything when it comes to us.

A real parent let’s NOTHING stand in their way. And when they fail, they do not blame others, but only themselves.

So sperm donor, I sometimes refer to you as the Bio one too. Take note before you think of your ‘every few years’ attempt at looking me up. It’s pointless. Too little far too late.

I never needed you anyway. I never will.

My kids have a Granddad. Actually they have two really great ones who show them everyday what real men do for children they love.

They don’t even know you exist.

I am better off without you.

Yours sincerely

The girl you forgot about.