Dear Dad

To celebrate Father’s Day, I’d like to do a carnival dedicated to Dads.

This could be your Dad, the father of your children, or perhaps an important male role model.

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Send me your posts before Sunday, June 17.

If you’re not a blogger, you can still write one in the comments section under this post.

And on that special Sunday when Dads are being gifted socks and aftershave, I’ll post a round-up of your thoughts and feelings about those special men in your life.

Please take part and make this possible. I’d love to hear your stories of the men who have made a difference to you.

To kick off proceedings, here’s what I have to say to my own father…

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Dear Dad,

I met you when I was 16. Wrote a letter asking if you wanted to know me – since my Mum had spent my entire childhood telling me otherwise.

You responded, asking to see me. It was the most exciting letter of my life.

I’d pictured a guy who so desperately wanted me, but like some romanticised movie, was kept apart from his beloved daughter, despite a desperate fight.

Instead on that day I met a man who’d remarried when I was 2. Who’d had two more children and decided, since my Mum was angry and bitter over the divorce, it was best to stay out of my life and concentrate on his new family.

And let me find you when I was ready.

I struggled with the anger and sadness of this. I tried to tell you how abandoned it made me feel.

But you said I didn’t understand how things were. How difficult it was for you, and how you’d cried over losing me.

You refused to understand how it felt to hear my father had made a conscious decision to lose me. To miss my first day of school, my first time riding a bike, my nativity plays, school sports days, exams…. all because he might get a tough time from his ex-wife.

It doesn’t sound like you did what was best for me, but easy for yourself.

I came to realise you have led a selfish life because others have allowed you to.

Your mother spoiled you, as her youngest child, and was always there with open arms to take you in, however much you hurt those around you.

Friends – men and women – embraced your ‘lovable rogue’ persona. And they supported your version of events, painting my Mum as the bad person who drove you away. What choice did you have?

A year after we met, your wife threw you out after discovering a string of affairs. I begged you not to make the same mistakes with your other children, who were then 11 and 14, by walking away from them.

They were justifiably angry. And once again you ran and hid. You stopped sending cards and presents, since they were always returned. You didn’t fight to stay close to them.

Your mantra became: “They know where I am if they need me.”

And I could only watch in dismay as you trampled two more young lives, to make things easier for yourself.

Now, more than 20 years later, you have your own little flat and your long-term girlfriend. Your children (all of us in our 30s) are in touch with you.

So I suppose you think you’ve done OK.

But we’ve just accepted you’ll never change. We deal alone with the damage you’ve done to us, knowing you won’t help us come to terms with it, or give any tangible answers.

I think of you as a friend. We get along and have a similar sense of humour. But how can I see a parent in someone who has never wiped away my tears when I’m hurt, never seen a single school photograph, never understood that my post natal depression was borne out of feeling unwanted and ignored as a child?

My half-brother, who I love dearly, is coming to terms with MS. His counselling sessions have been as much about you, and how little interest you take in his illness, as they have been about the condition itself.

And my half-sister has distanced herself from the family, embracing the title of Black Sheep – although no-one but you has made her feel that way. You despair of the fact she disappears for months on end, never bothering to visit. You write her off as selfish and self-centred.

But you made her your little Princess – then walked out on her and never looked back. Is it a surprise she feels angry and unable to rely on anyone but herself?

So now you proudly tell your friends you have three kids, and a couple of grandchildren. You’ve done well. We’ve all turned out great.

And we maintain the facade. But don’t think for a moment any of us believe it.

Yes, we’re doing our best to live happy lives. And we have turned out great – considering.

We love you, so - despite the anger, the betrayal and all your imperfections – we’ve stuck around.

We only wish you had done the same.

Love Donna xxx