(Gestalt Goodbyes include appreciatons,  resentments, and regrets.)

Things that I appreciated  about you, Daddy:  your encouraging me to write creatively; your encouraging me to draw; your teaching me and coaching me to play tennis; your intelligence and lively mind; your sense of humor , and the day I left my homework at home and you chased the city bus downtown to give it to me.

Things I resented  about you: your lack of work ethic; your lying in bed all the time you were home; your sense of entitlement –it seemed you thought the world owed you a lot that you really didn’t deserve; the way you treated Mother; your molesting me; your scrambling my mind with conflicting messages about sex and life; your lack of insight into your problems; your being willing to subject the family to your alcoholic lifestyle; your insising I return home when I had the chance at a much better life with my maternal grandparents; you frightening me when you straggered through the house.

Things I regret: that you remained a weak victim of your father’s molestation; that you suffered and did not become a father I could respect;  that you gave up on yourself and tried to live your life through me. I’m afraid that covers it all. Goodbye to you and all that.

Reprinted from FALLOUT: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders.