a long time coming...

as my mom said "this was 30 years in the making"

i was 11 when my parents divorced.
And after saying goodbye to my grandmother for one last time, I knew that she was watching over me, her and my aunt, when they helped me find the strength to write this letter...


From: dad
To: daughter

Subject: Note

Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:54:03 -040


hpk, I'm somewhat disappointed in finding out things like in your facebook or after the fact about Jim's wife passing away, like your upcoming wedding and now about the passing away of your grandmother. I'm the last one only to find out when looking on your facebook instead of a small email from you personally


Dad



From: hpk

To: dad

Subject: RE: Note

Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 03:35:12 +0000


dad,

please understand that i'm i a really bad place right now - facebook is just a shout out to all my friends/family cause often I don't have the energy to sit down and type things and send emails to everybody I really want to..

it's been so hard the last little while - with mom's health, e's stress which is forever mounting, the small things to organize the wedding which are really enough to drive everybody crazy, and then my health scares... Was sick - so much so I collapsed. I was sure I had a stomach flu, but as it turns out - I maybe have a peptic ulcer - was blocked up for a week - tried everything. Gaged through each glass of water - never threw up, but came close. A week in horrible pain, - went for an abdominal ultrasound, abdominal xray and nothing. Then the lumps near my left breast near my underarm was getting bigger and more sore. all I could think about was cancer, and I could not get one doctor to tell it to me straight...


so sometimes, i just send out a little shout cause that's all i can manage to have the strength for - and these days, it's all that i got...


and now with starenka gone - i wanted nothing more than for her to be at my wedding. Just a few days before, i asked her what she was going to wear, and now she's gone...

i can't wrap my head around that...

and auntie j - i was as floored as you were. Mom and i didn't know at all

funny, in the age of information such as email, communications still get lots along the way..

I hope your interferon treatments go well and wipe out all those little nasty cells...

But I'm sure they will -you are one tough mean joe green and that is one thing I admire most about you and mom - not quitters - never give up - stand up and punch adversity in the mouth...


I just wish I could find the strength to do the same. I'm so worn down, so very worn down..


Happy, and in love, but my spirit is pretty beat up.


thanks for your thoughts

talk soon

oooxo
k



From: dad

To: hpk

Subject: RE: Note

Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:04:47 -0400


hpk, I do understand what your going through and hope that your communication through your friends in facebook is necessary, however, I hope you don't consider me as a friend. You know, as a father, I should have more personal important information and have the privilege being a Father instead of facebook friends.


I know reading over your email the turmoil that you are taken upon yourself and in some way I disagree. The three most precious things in your life these days are, your Mother, me, your Father and E. All others are hardship which you cannot control. Take it as it is and let it flow freely instead of trying to coop with other situations and problems and perhaps the positive vibes will bring your body to the three things which you should care for and the ailing pains will pass.

Take care and be positive and remember what your mom and I are going through. We can only accept the situation in a positive mind and keep on living daily and enjoy the few happy years ahead of us now.

Love Dad.




my reply last night
it took three hours, but it was an unedited steam of thought.
And after re-reading it, I'm pretty fucken impressed with myself...

dad,

i have read this email and understand what you are saying...

but please understand where i am coming from..

of course you are more than a friend, you are my dad, and technically will always be my dad, but at the same time, you have been absent for most of my teen and adult life and I believe that you being privy to what now happens in my life, being "a dad" is not a privilege or right when you have not been an "actual dad" for most of my life.


You can't just "step into the role" when you want.

I don't think fatherhood works that way. At least, in my book, it doesn't...


That still hurts - not having you around all the time, not being there for the big and even the little things in my life like a dad should. I used to look at my friends and their family photos and wished that could have been me - happy and together.


When I graduated with my degree from film - "with distinction/honours", shaking hands with the Dean of the university, on stage after in the mezzane - seeing proud fathers standing beside their daughters. When I won all those awards for my film - my film about my very difficult nervous breakdown - in front of 500 people on a saturday screening, going up to accept my award for best film, i was happy, but without you there. it was not the same.

and then there were the sad times - when my heart was broken so many times, when i was in the hospital, so sick and in intensive care - almost in severe kidney failure and fast tracked for a transplant, when i cried for days after finding out that my best best friend shot himself in the head at the age of 24 or when i found out that mom had cancer.

or when you and mom divorced...

i needed you there when i felt like i was the reason you and mom split up

i needed my dad and you were not there...

but I pulled through - and with the love and support of auntie, uncle my little cousin/sister l, and of course the strength and amazing courage of starenka and mom, i survived, and with their help, became the beautiful talented woman i am today.


And they accepted me for all that i have done, all that I am and continue to do and be, which i am forever thankful for because I have been judged by many, and being an artist, that is part of the game, but i never would have made it to galleries in Seattle, Arizona, Toronto and most of all and importantly New York without their support.


I know i could have not done it without them and now with e in my life - God bless e. He is my everything, and because of him, i can believe in love again. Know that marriage doesn't always have to end in divorce, and have a partner in life and love to walk with me till i'm old and grey, and beyond...

but I needed your support back then too..

BUT I also understand that you did (left us) what you did and I'm not angry anymore about it and don't hate you for what you did.

I've come to terms with you having a need to move on with your life - your life with mom was not a happy one, and if you would have stayed together, it might have caused us all even more amounts of grief and pain. The break was a necessary one. And as an adult, I now understand all of that. I have accepted that. Life goes on. We all move on. We all turn another page...

but somewhere inside of me, a little hpk is still hurt and feels left behind in the messy divorce


you know all that crap about coming to terms with your "inner child" - well, i realized that i have a lot of healing to do - and even at 40, i still miss the happy family that we could have been but never were...

there are so many things that have happened to me, and to those around me - some things you never could have imagined - both good and bad, but how do we, you and me, make up for that lost time?

I don't know - I wish i had the answers, and wish i could turn back the hands of time, but that is something we just have to come to grips with...


so all of this to say - i'm so very very happy that we have reconnected, and are slowly rebuilding our relationship, but understand that it's gonna take some time for me to get used to you being back in my life again. Cause for so many years, we were never really that close - and yea, i did consider you more of a friend than dad just because when I was only seeing you on weekends, and then over the years, once or twice a year is what i do with friends. Not even friends, acquaintances...


i admire your courage - what you have gone through, and continue to do so, but i am not you who seems to bounce back from adversity and setbacks with what I get from the tone of your emails, steely determination, resolve and unemotional distancing, but dad, and am sensitive, get hurt easily, and being open about my fears and weaknesses is the way that i work through my problems/turmoil is just how i am.

can you really accept me for who i am?


All of this shit - stress and life's ups and downs, I will get through this.

I alway have, but it seems that me showing you my vulnerable side makes you uncomfortable, but I'm not sorry for that. I am your daughter, and I hope that as my father, you will accept me for all that I am, cause that is what a father should do, and that it is you who are privileged because i decide to let you back into my life...

and today was a very sad day indeed.

We all wept because we will miss her, but then smiled, and remembered how wonderful and what an incredible woman starenka was.

But grieving is a very personal thing, and i turn to support from people who have supported me, hence posting to my facebook page.


They may seem like strangers to you, but to me, some of them are as close to family as family can be, and have gathered around to send their love and strength my way.

I have been wanting to say all of this to you for some time, but never had the courage, mainly because i feared that whatever little contact I had with you would end - you would disappear again and you would forever be out of my life because you could not handle me and my emotions, but as i type this, i feel the loving hand of auntie on one shoulder, and starenka, the other, giving me the strength to write these words to you because i have, for so many years, not been able to.

we both have a lot to think about, and a part of me even doubts that you will get this far into the message without just getting really pissed off and sending me an angry email in response, but that is my memory of you - hair-trigger temper, and anger followed by silence.

I really hope you can prove me wrong.

so on that note, I must rest.

I have done enough grieving to last me a few years, including the letting go of these painful emotions/thoughts of our relationship

and of course, and seeing starenka for one last time.

mom starts round two of her IL2 treatment again on monday so I won't be near my email or phone for a while as I will be spending most of my time at the hospital.

once again, i hope this email opens the door to more dialogue and doesn't close it forever.

always your daughter,
hpk