I can’t let go of a parent who left us…

It’s been hard, really hard. I don’t know where else to look for some comfort and solace. My father left our country to work in the Middle East when I was twelve, and oldest of all siblings. He loved me very much, would take me to school, was physically affectionate, fed me food that I liked, would talk to my in the sweetest manner. I know all parents are supposed to do that but not all parents do that. But I was still scared of him, I knew there was a line I couldn’t cross, and I hated that line. I hated that line so much that over the years I kept despising him, I wanted him to not come back, to not live with us, so I can live with my freedom. Yet in reality, I never crossed the line until one day and he never actually did anything my overthinking, anxious brain was scared of.

While he lived in the Middle East, he bore tremendous hardships, he lost his visa, his immigration status, his money, his investments, but he never showed any anger or disappointment to us. He would just stop calling us for days because he either didn’t have money to call us or he would be too embarrassed by his situation to burden us. We never knew how bad he was having it until we really found out through a couple instances and connecting some dots. His financial situation was so bad that not only he couldn’t support us but he was almost starving himself because he didn’t want to come back as a loser and without getting his money back from the people who betrayed him in partnerships.

We all struggled financially back home. I worked to support my studies but then at some point, I became the sole earner in the family. I had to ditch my dreams of living a free life, traveling the world, doing whatever I want, and help my family feed, without getting any acknowledgment or support for that. Needless to say, I couldn’t take it much longer. After just about a year and a half. I gave up and moved to the USA, I had an opportunity, I grabbed it. I didn’t consult anyone in the family, just kinda packed my bags and left. My father never talked to me after that, and although I thought about him every day, I just couldn’t bring myself to talk to him either. I heard he was really sad and upset by me. He had just said once that she could have told us before leaving us like that.

Three years later, this day, he peacefully passed away in his sleep suddenly without saying a word to anyone. And I am devastated to say the least!!! I don’t know what should I do with my guilt, with my sadness, with my hopes. I always thought, we’d have a talk one day, we’ll reconcile. I know he loved me and I loved him too. We just couldn’t say it, and we just couldn’t support each other the way we needed.

There is a lot of trauma too in the family due to a decade long financial struggles, my mother, and my father, their relationship and shortcomings, but I just don’t know where to take my guilt now and place it? I can’t stop imagining that I couldn’t even listen to the way he’d talk to me one last time. I could never find out, how he felt about me abandoning him like that without saying anything. I feel like he left me the same way I left him. The only difference is that I still had left a door open and he didn’t even leave that.

I am carrying so much baggage of my parent’s sacrifice and unfulfilled life. I know I didn’t ask to be born, they brought me into this world. But they were freaking boomers. At that time, most parents didn’t know they even had a choice not to. They had set patterns of how life and how the society will persist and they followed it without questioning it.

I probably just over empathize but, how should I let go of this now, how should I grieve it? I feel like, I failed as a daughter. He had so much patience and I had none. I wanted things that I don’t even care about now. And I left him for that.