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Dear Sperm Donor
Dear Sperm Donor
Dear Canadian Sperm Donor,
For reasons unexpected, I have been thinking about you quite a lot lately. I suppose it has a bit to do with the summer approaching and all the time I spend out in the yard with the flowers; that was our gig, eh, the flower garden. Almost all of what you put in the yard with me is still there, but this year it’s different, see, because this year I am able to look at it and not feel the darkness, our darkness, envelop me.
The reason I have chosen to write to you tonight is simple: it seems to be the time. I was bathing Grace tonight and was working on cleaning the dirt from under the stubs of what used to be fingernails. She complained that it hurt and I gave her the “if you didn’t chew them down so far they wouldn’t hurt” speech that I must have given you a thousand times in our four or so years together. Your name actually slipped out of my mouth then: “You get that from William.”
“Who’s William,” she wanted to know. So I went through the whole spiel again. “William is your father, Grace.”
“No, I don’t have a father named William.”
“Yes, you do, Grace. He helped me to make you and then he got sick and had to leave.”
This conversation went on and on, finally ending with her declaration that her sister’s dad was her dad. So I took it a step further tonight; in place of a nighty night story, I went and dug out the scrapbook I had started when Grace was born. Together the two of us, for we were all alone without fear of being interrupted, sat and looked at her scrapbook. And she saw pictures of the two of you when she was 2 ½ months old. Two and a half months old. She’s four now.
I am being told by something, perhaps my guides, to write to you to let you know that I have forgiven you, William--for one thing. I have forgiven you for leaving. In fact, I know now that it was the best thing for you to do. The whole motherhood thing was foreign to me, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it as well as I have if you would have stuck around with your ill mind. So thank you for leaving, and I don’t mean for that to be facetious because I do know that it was the best thing for everyone involved.
To be perfectly honest, I am stuck there with my forgiveness, and it’s because that’s the only thing I have been able to let go of, your leaving. I want to write to you that it’s okay that you have made no effort to support your daughter, our daughter, because you are ill, but I can’t because it’s not okay.
And the fact that you have made no attempt to establish a relationship is unforgivable for me still. You know without a doubt that I would have allowed you to establish yourself in this child’s life, whether it be via letter or phone; I never expected you to cross the border again. And the truth be known , I wouldn’t have allowed you to be alone with her anyway because I lost trust in you the day you left when I was five months pregnant; the day you climbed out of the van and told me that you had to leave because you knew I wasn’t carrying your child but rather a child that belonged to a man I had yet to meet. Psychic premonition? Maybe, but I think you were a frightened man who had recently been confronted with an overwhelming amount of guilt and felt as if you had to hurt me so deeply so I would let you leave. And if only I had….
So here I sit, over four years later, and am still not able to completely forgive you. And I think it’s because I look at her and see you and your other daughter in her so often and so strongly. She so closely resembles the two of you; she has the same body shape and the same facial expressions. I watch her draw and know that she also inherited that from you because music is my gift, not drawing. And I get so mad at you for running the other way and acting as if she doesn’t exist at all except at Christmas and her birthday when you throw a money order in an envelope with an “I love you, dad” tossed on for good measure. You’re not her dad, William, and, sadly, I don’t believe that you will ever be.
You don’t know what you’re missing by opting out of her life. She is one of the most tender-hearted people I know, which leads me to believe that she would find a way to understand why you’re not a permanent fixture in her life. She is so bright and so beautiful. You don’t even know that she scored as high on an academic screening as she could score. And maybe I should share that kind of stuff with you through email, but, you know what? I don’t feel you’re entitled to know what’s going on with her; in my opinion, you haven’t earned that privilege. And then, on the flip side, I often feel as if I should initiate the relationship between the two of you. But I know that I tried that. Remember? I drove 14 ½ hours one way with an infant twice so you could see her and touch her, get to know her. The last time we left two days early because you were in such a spin after calling your other daughter and telling her that she had a baby sister that was almost a year old. I was so mad at myself for even taking her there and getting her in that kind of drama. But at least I can always say to her that I tried.
Maybe one day I will be able to completely forgive you for everything. I will try my best to not poison her against you because I know you’re ill, but I will also point out that I had nothing to do with the fact that you chose to not be in her life. I loved you, William, with everything I was. I gave so much of myself to you that I will never ask to get back. And I hope that she can find it in her heart to forgive you based on what I have given her as her mama. And maybe by then I will be able to forgive you too.
Until then, I will be moved to write to you many letters that will be left to lay in a box with all the letters and photos I have saved for you over the years. I would like to think that she will be the one to hand that box to you one day. And maybe she’ll be able to meet the father and the sister that she still, at the age of four, doesn’t know she has but acts so much like. Maybe, just maybe….
posted on June 18, 2008 9:11 PM ()
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