so your dad is a drake ass n word? me too, I’m sorry

Honestly, most would say I'm lucky if you’re looking at it from a surface level. I was blessed with FOUR fathers. An adopted one, a stepdad, a grandfather and a biological one. It’s really the details that’ll get you.

Of those four, only one had really spent the time and effort in my formative years to be present, loving, active, and SAFE. One, to give him his flowers, simply does better with adults. The third, was an abusive monster with blog posts of his own. One happened to provide the DNA that allowed me to exist, and that’s pretty much it. The last of these men, the DNA bearer, is going to be discussed here. 

I will give him this, he is great at being absent. In my almost 30 years, 27 of which I remember, I’ve seen him exactly six times. Six. They are as follows:

-a hazy memory of myself and my sibling sliding around the backseat of a car (no car seats) while an Usher song was playing. I probably only remember because of the Usher song. 

-my older sibling’s high school graduation 

-my high school graduation 

-an event I call Tonsilgate. In which, two days after getting my tonsils removed, I went to see my father who was visiting family (not me) in the same city I was attending grad school. When I walked in the door, unable to really speak or eat any solid foods, he asked me if i wanted to smoke a blunt with him and his wife. 

-Funeralgate. A different event in which I attended my paternal great grandmother’s funeral and watched her two close church friends call out my father by name for “not following the way he was raised, in taking care of his children” 

-His sister, my auntie’s wedding. where he spent almost no time with me and my sibling. 

So if that’s what we’re working with, how else can one take such messages as “no one, including me, thought you were mine” and “i never said i wanted you”? In a similar way that Pusha T, Beyoncé, Megan Thee Stallion, and Kendrick handled Drake. Call it out. Cut them off. Leave them to the other weirdos. 

Plus, I’m nothing if not fair. If I called out the abusive father, the absent one should have equal treatment. Especially within the process of speaking my truth before going no contact. The blogs about the two of them combined are nothing compared to the flowers given to my grandfather, while he was still here to receive them. Below are my final words to him. I’m more than happy to share them publicly, as I am not afraid of the truth of the situation. For minimum privacy’s sake, names have been blacked out:

Hi XXX! 

So, this is my final letter, I guess. It’s barely a letter, honestly. You know most of this stuff, if not all of it. It’s my final thoughts, for you and about you. I’m writing this because you should know exactly why I've made the choices that I have. You should know the effect that you have had, because of your own choices. I have tried to give you an opportunity to be honest with every question and conversation that I've tried to have with you. Your stories change, your logic is flawed. You lie. You run from accountability and truth like an olympic track star. You would win gold at every event you participated in, if there were a Terrible Father Olympics. In real life, your actual gold medal is for being a Deadbeat Father. The only real commitments you have are your commitment to misunderstanding and your commitment to your alternate reality.

Now, please please know I am not trying to abuse you. Or bully you. These are the cold hard facts of our relationship, and the things I've been saying to you all my life that you have ignored due to your ego and bitterness. 

XXX, the only one who is abusive out of the two of us, is you. You chose to have two children, and then neglected them. That neglect allowed for us to be massively, routinely, and ritually abused as infants, babies, and toddlers. Your neglect and abandonment allowed those things to happen. You could’ve stepped in. But you didn’t, you fucked off immediately. There were consequences that you could never imagine, that you are the root cause of. If you were responsible, and willing to do the work- you would’ve gotten custody over XXX, or at least visitation. We would’ve never continued to be in an abusive household, under XXX, if you had fought. But you didn’t fight. You don’t fight. You lack the mental and emotional strength to fight. Part of me truly believes that you lack a conscience. I think that you are so down bad and stuck in the mindset that you didn’t and haven’t really done anything for anyone to be upset about. You live in an alternate reality where things just happen to you, and no one can ever be mad at you because it can never be your fault. You cannot wrap your head around the fact that you have made choices to do wrong. You will die with that mindset, if you don’t make a change. 

You have always had so many excuses and reasons for why you’ve done  what you've done and said what you’ve said. But I have this question for you to think about: when does the reason become the blame? When has it gotten so far gone that a man is no longer a man, he’s a monster? Do you have a breaking point? What happens when you come to your epiphany and there’s no one left around to accept your forgiveness and growth? 

I have never said anything to you with the intention of hurting you. I have only ever wanted you to understand how I feel, and understand the weight of what you’ve done. I’m not angry with you. I don’t hate you. I don't feel hurt by you anymore. I have released my anger and hurt, and I did that a really long time ago. Therapy helped me realize that I don't need to hate you, or be angry with you, or feel hurt. I also don’t need to forgive you. The results are what they are. The situation is exactly as you have designed it. The responsibility that you refuse to hold, is still yours. I don’t have to hold it. What remains is only the facts.

You are a bad father. Any time that you have had an opportunity to stand up, or do something, or protect us, you didn’t. Instead, you whined and said “I don’t want to fuss”. Sir, you are the parent. If you see your child in a dangerous situation, or even merely upset- you should be stepping in. You’re a failure. You have lost and lost and lost. Missed chance after chance to be a real fucking man, a real fucking dad. Each time you choose to sit on your ass and smoke a blunt, taking no responsibility. You have fulfilled every horrible stereotype of black men- terrible fathers that abandon their children and repeatedly choose a random lady instead of the people you laid down and made. Gluttonous and selfish, a sinner of sinners, ripe with fake remorse and apologies. A serpent’s tongue, if it weren’t an insult to serpents. When you do “apologize”, there’s nothing behind it. You immediately go to “well I don’t know what you expect me to do” or “Well I said I’m sorry”. What’s the use of a sorry when I know you don’t feel remorse? If you felt remorse, you would do anything.

You, and your wife, bring up co-signing my loans for school (undergrad, 10 years ago) as if you should be thrown a parade. Is it not sad that that is the only thing you can say that you’ve done, as a father and a man,  to help either one of your children? And to have the audacity to throw it in my face, too, you’re sick. Parents don’t only pay for things. They are support systems, emotionally. They’re available for advice, comfort, and knowledge. What are you available for? A blunt? Maybe? You have done nothing to display the skills of a father. Maybe it’s because you were never taught, but according to Grandma XXX- you were taught differently. So we’ve arrived at this place because of your choices and your choices alone. There is so much you could have done even in the last ten years, that would have made a huge difference. You may be too brainless to figure that out, though, since I have told you at least 12 times in that amount of time. 

You could have invited us to be part of your life. XXX has done better than you in that sense, she invites us to Oakland to see her. She comes to Denver, and Dallas, to see her children. She does what she says she will. You could have stood up for me, publicly or even in front of ME, against the names your wife called me. Even when I tried to address it in person, you ran away. Those are just some of your missed opportunities to address ANYTHING every time you saw me in person as an adult. But what did you do? Nothing! I barely even SAW YOU. I was with XXX, XXX, or XXX, or one of your cousins. I wasn’t with my weak ass father who is too scared of his own kid to even TALK to her. You’re pathetic. 

I often think about the Fathers in warzones. Or the Fathers experiencing genocide, losing thier children. Or even Fathers in the US that have lost their children in varying situations like natural disasters or police violence. Seeing videos of Fathers crying their hearts out over the loss of their kids, desperately wishing to be dead in their places. I think about what it must feel like to know, even from beyond this earth, that your father would die for you to have your life back. Fathers that actually want to be around their children, but cannot. How devastating that must be for them. The heartache those fathers must experience. You are so far removed from that. Look at how privileged you were. You had children begging for you to love and care about them. And you did nothing. Sometimes, I imagine what it would be like to have a father like the fathers in Gaza. Ones who would give any and everything for the return of their babies. Those children are loved beyond measure, even in death. You, however, protect your wife and your “friends” before your children.

How weak and pathetic are you, that you cannot do even a sliver of the same thing as other fathers in the world? How brainless, selfish can one man possibly be? To the levels of Future, a terrible dad to the core. There are men that would kill or die to have a relationship with their kids, and look at you. You would’ve been better off not having us. 

I genuinely hope that haunts you until the day you die. I hope the failure is so huge that you think about it from the moment you wake up until the moment you fall asleep at night. It needs to have an impact on you, so you can TRY to make a change for the ONE child you MAY have left. Your Golden Boy is not going to be the Golden Boy forever, especially when you have no more whipping girls. It’ll be you and your wife, locked in forever in misery. 

This letter is my final goodbye to you. It's time for me to learn the lesson that your actions have been displaying for the last THIRTY years. And I can understand, now, what that lesson is. I can no longer spend time begging someone to care about me when it’s clear they don’t. I cannot chase any more men that have shown me that they do not want me. Who have SAID that they do not want me. I will no longer beg, or try, or even attempt to communicate with a man who treats his children as you have treated us. It is not my job to convince you I’m worthy of love, when it was your choices that brought me into the world. I would choose to not enter the world at all, if it meant that you would make the choice to not have children. 

You don’t care about me or my sister. You never did. You never truly loved us. It was all about proximity to a woman that did not want you anymore. You are a pathetic excuse for a father, and a man. I take what you say and do very seriously. Your ‘typo’ revealed your soul, and I thank god it did:

After this- my only father died years ago. I’m referring to Papa, the only man to ever protect and take care of me as a father should. When I really think about it, I did have a father who loved me like those Warzone Fathers love their babies. My Papa was a better man than you could ever be, and knowing that he is no longer here while you waste time and opportunity makes me physically sick. You should’ve let us have the last name XXX, like our mother. I would’ve thanked you for the kindness to fuck off from the very begining, like when you found out XXX was pregnant with me. You should’ve taken the out, and maybe you’d be in a better spot. Because silence, from the beginning, would have allowed you to redeem yourself in our adulthood. Instead, we got to watch you lie and play in our faces as we grew up. We found out about your wife and YOUR SON via FACEBOOK. You’re SICK. 

You, XXX are dead to me. I can no longer offer you anything. Not an opportunity to tell your story, or clear your name/conscience. I no longer care about your experiences and feelings. Not forgiveness. Not closure. You will only receive silence from this point forward. You may call this mean, or ruthless, or cruel. Or even abusive. And it very well may feel that way for you. I believe, in this case, that the ruthlessness you are feeling is mercy upon myself. I need to choose myself, and not a man who has never done what he’s said he would do. It’s time to break the cycle. 

I truly hope you’re happy with the consequences of your choices. Or satisfied. You have abandoned and neglected two children, at least,  and squandered (wasted) every bit of chance you had to rebuild or atone or fix it. I will never absolve you. May your grace and excuses and reassurance that you haven’t done anything wrong continue to come from the poisonous lips of your wife, the only one left. 

Take this letter as my death. Or yours. Whichever one works for you. Burn it, shred it, show it to your therapist, whatever. I know my death would grant you so much peace. That’s so sick. It’s a level of disgusting and horror I could never imagine feeling toward a person I made the choice to bring into the world. Your ultimate Opp will finally be gone, so please, relish in the release this event is giving you, deep down. This finality is a gift, XXX.
 

Now, you’ve lost two children for the remainder of your life. I don’t hate you. The only feeling I have is disgust, and that will fade with time. It will fade into the nothing that you have embodied my whole life. It is possible that you will be blocked, or will merely be ignored for the rest of your life, with you only having a read receipt as proof of delivery. I will not come back on your deathbed, only at your funeral to pay my final respects. And honestly, knowing your wife- I know I wouldn’t even be invited to your funeral. But that’s not something that would hurt me, it would be fitting of how you lived and died- behind a jealous, catty, callous, hateful woman.  

Good luck,

Kimani Rose