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LETTER TO MY FATHER

 

 

Sometimes, there are stories written with the hands…

Others, with the heart.

And some, like this one, with tears, my tears,

Because it is my story…

My life…

            LETTER TO MY FATHER

Father do you remember me as a child……

Do you remember Father, my child’s heart, so fragile….

Do you remember Father the ones of my brothers and sisters

Do you remember Father what our childhood was like….

Do you remember Father the tears and cries echoing in the house…

Do you remember Father our poor mother’s sobs, how her cries and tears

Pierced our hearts when you were beating her……

Do you remember Father your children begging you to stop, with broken hearts,

Incredulous and with tears running down their faces…

Do you remember Father the frozen sidewalks where I would flee barefooted,

To get the policemen to calm you down…when they left, do you remember

The lump in my stomach and how you would go after a boy not even

Five years old… after my brothers, babies yet, and my sisters so afraid….

Do you remember Father the winter nights when we had to hide under the beds and

In the cupboards while you were sobering up and stopped being violent…

Do you remember Father hitting our mother with your fists and kicking her,

God help her, her who had to serve you the king of fathers and her six

Cherished children…

Do you remember Father drinking so much to become what you were…

Do you remember Father the time when the doctors locked you up for

Supposedly a nervous breakdown…and when me, my older sister and the one

Younger than me, were sent to a farm in Louiseville…..

Do you remember Father how they treated us in that place…do you remember

The frequent whippings that I got, without reasons, and my sisters crying…

Do you remember Father our mother’s heartbreak when some social workers took

Away her three youngest ones…her little angels, whose little hearts

 Had been broken for always by your violence and your drinking…

Do you remember Father your own mother, our grandmother, coming to get us

And to bring us back to Montreal.

Do you remember Father your pretended healing when you returned home

With our mother… do you remember not being healed…do you remember

That it started all over again without any changes…

Do you remember Father that children who see their mother crying and being beaten carry scars on their hearts till death.

Do you remember Father, when as a teenager of sixteen, I put six bullets

In my riffle and placed it in a corner of my room because I wanted to

Do away with you that night…..

Yes Father, I remember being so fed up with my life and in such despair since

My birth, that I wanted to do away with you and to kill you that night…

A son who kills his father… what a mess in one’s life… what nonsense…

That evening when I was sixteen and you were angry with my mother again,

 Did you know Father that if you had not left when I hit the table

With my fist and told you to leave the house, that I probably would

Have killed you with six bullets…..

Did you know Father that God does exist because he is the only

One who could stopped me.

Did you know Father that after you left, our mother became a

Human being, not a beast….

Did you know Father how much you destroyed our mother and us,

And that you left my brothers, my sisters and me with scars still burning

To this day…

Did you know Father, when mother died about twelve years ago, I cried

Because I had lost her; but that my tears were also tears of joy for

Finely she was free from this miserable life…

What you do not know Father is that I felt pity and compassion for you…when I

Went to visit you in the hospital, in February, while you were sick with cancer…

What you do not know Father, is that I forgave you everything that night because

I do not have the strength to condemn you.. I only have strength to love…

The strength that God gave me…

Did you know Father that I could not shed a tear when you died…

And maybe Father…it is because I cried so much as a child…………………

No hard feelings Father…… I love you Mother……

 

André Julien, octobre 2001

                 dd.julienvideotron.ca

                           Thank to Shana for translate for me this text.

 

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