This post contains a personal essay, a poem and a short story from Alvin Fogleman. Click on the next page at the bottom of this story for more writing.
Letter of Forgiveness
Hey, “you”, here I go again writing a letter to forgive you. I’ve already walked this road many times and found nothing has changed. All the other times I did it for you. To ease your conscience and heartache. This is the last time.
This isn’t for you, this is for me.
This is so that I can heal and grow and move on. With or without you.
This is for me.
When I’ve broached topics before you tried to break me down. To make me feel small. Like I either didn’t know what I was talking about or I was lying. That whatever it was was my fault. I remember. I remember everything. I can recall—vividly—my childhood. I don’t blame you. I know you did the best you could given the hand you were dealt. You somehow, miraculously, managed to both protect and abandon all in one fluid motion. A paradox for real.
You abandoned us and then became vindictive when we sought love, nurturing and support elsewhere. As if we were in the wrong. I always came back to you. Given the choice I came back to you every time.
Fast forward to when I was a teenager. I had buried my dad at age sixteen. You left me homeless on the streets for years—both before and after his death. I roamed around looking for you and when I found you you treated me as if I were an acquaintance. Like I was just a random person you had once met in passing. I needed you. I didn’t know how to deal with all life was throwing at me. And I especially didn’t know how to deal with my dads death. Yet you shunned me.
I’ve never told anyone, but I was distraught, alone and hopeless with no clue what else there was for me to do. So I used a rusty razor blade in my friend’s backyard while they were away in hopes of bleeding out. I still carry those scars.
Right before I turned 18 I discovered I was supposed to have been receiving monthly social security checks following my fathers death. For nearly two years you hid this from me. You left me to rot In the gutter while you got high on the money intended to clothe and feed me. I had to panhandle change, sleep on park benches or under bridges while you shacked up in motels with the flavor of the week on my money. By the time I had found out it was far too late. The funds stopped coming when I became an adult. All I had to show for it was the last check stub and a new born baby.
Still you somehow managed to concoct your story to make you the innocent party and blamed me or rather my memory of actual events as you see it.
Yet still I came back to you.
I’ve forgiven you before, though I did it for you and always held a grudge. I forgive you again. This time it’s not for you. I’m taking charge and this one is for me. This is so that I can move on with my life and grow. I’m no longer holding on to my anger towards you. Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting….
I’m free of those self imposed chains of anger, remorse or regret. I hope you too find it in you to forgive yourself.
