A father is meant to be a source of unconditional support—especially in our darkest moments. But for 23-year-old Allison, reality proved much different. Struggling to raise two children with no one else to turn to, she reached out to the one person she thought would never turn her away: her dad. Instead, she was met with cold refusal.
This is Allison’s story:
At 23, I became a single mother of 2 after losing my fiancé in a sudden accident. With no support system and barely making minimum wage, I found myself unable to pay for both rent and groceries. Desperate, I turned to my dad for help—the one person I believed would never let me and his grandchildren fall through the cracks.
But he refused saying his new wife wouldn’t like it, and that he didn’t want to “disrupt the peace” in his home.
Those were the hardest years of my life. My children and I went without—without proper meals, without heat some nights, without security. I juggled two, sometimes three jobs, lived off of food stamps and coupons, and rarely slept more than four hours a night.
But I made it. Slowly, painfully, I built a stable life. Today, I have a steady job, a small but cozy home, and two healthy, happy kids. We survived.
15 years later, he showed up at my door. I hadn’t heard from him in all that time. He’s now alone, broke, and homeless. He asked to come in—just for a week.
I couldn’t do it. As I shut the door, he said, “If I had helped you back then, maybe you wouldn’t have become this strong. Look at everything you’ve achieved.”
I was stunned. But he said, “I was lost in that relationship. My wife had made me forgot what it meant to be a father. I was scared of losing her, and I left you behind. I regret it every day.”
Before walking away, he added, “Parents aren’t perfect. I’m not perfect. I made a terrible mistake. Please don’t forget—I’m still your father.”
But how can I forgive someone who turned his back on me when I had nowhere else to go—who ignored his own grandchildren for nearly two decades?
What should I do?
Source: brightside.me