Freedom.

6 January 2007

Freedom

The phone call this morning felt like an act of betrayal. Sarah, you should call. You should call so that he knows you’re coming up to see him. You can’t reveal too much though, so simply say you want to give him something. I don’t want to call. What will I say? Can I get away without saying dad in the beginning of the conversation? He doesn’t deserve “dad.” Maybe Jeff and April won’t want to go today. Maybe I should wait another week: maybe a month. I am not ready for this. I don’t really need to take this step. You should simply ask if he is at home, and say that you are driving up there to give him something in about an hour. Leave it at that. It needs to come as a surprise to him, so that he does not have time to plan how to manipulate this meeting. It needs to hit him fresh. Pick up the phone and dial that number for the last time. You won’t have to dial it again for anything: ever. Why do I always have to face these challenges? Do other people have things that they are terrified to do, yet they have been almost forced to step over the edge? Do they jump too? Do they conquer each terrifying trial like I do? Or do they wait? Why can’t I wait like other people do? I am not other people: I am stronger than that. I want more. “Lord, please give me strength to do this today. I am surprised at how scared I am. I have not planned this out at all really. I need you so badly. I cannot do this on my own. It feels right. I wish I knew if this is what you wanted of me. Am I pleasing you? Would you say to my soul, “Well done, my good and faithful servant?” Am I finding you in this life? Is this okay? Am I okay? Please Lord, I don’t have anything to offer besides all of my untrusting heart. This is all that I can give right now, and that’s my everything. Okay, I should call and see if he’s even there, because Jeff and April will be here soon to go with me to his apartment. As I dial like I have so many times before; I am unprepared for his voice. I am always unprepared. I have never found the solution to preparedness with him. “Hi dad, (I said it, I didn’t want to say it. At least it will be the last time I will have to) this is Sarah. Fine, how are you? Yeah, um… I was wondering if you’re going to be around for awhile. Okay, because I want to bring you something. What? Oh, I will leave in about a half hour, I will be there by eleven o’clock. Yeah, okay, bye.” My half truths felt like betrayal. Why do I feel like I am betraying him when he is the one who has betrayed himself. Get those thoughts out of my head. I have to do this. I have to do this today. Poor guy, he probably won’t understand. I might hurt him. To hell with that thought from the devil. This man is unfeeling; I do not need to be concerned with his feelings. I don’t need weak thoughts right now; I need peace, I need strength, I need to get this over with because I feel the weight of it hanging over me.

“Hi Jeff, okay, I’ll be out there in a minute. Will you drive me to his car? I parked it on a hill a few minutes from my apartment. Okay, be right out.” I printed out two copies of the ten points I had written to read to my father the day I would give him his car back and finally smack him with my honest heart. Oh, how long I have waited to be free from his wicked binds. His hands are so filthy. His mind so far. His motives so blurred. His existence so pitiful. Could I actually read these things to him? How could I say all of this? Should I just hand it to him and walk away? No! Sarah, you’ll never have this day again. Today is your opportunity. Your little girl inside who has been murdered deserves for these words to be spoken aloud. Please say them Sarah. Do it for yourself. You are strong enough. You are capable of doing this. You will go in there, say what you want to say, and leave, like you have always imagined. You’re not hurting him maliciously. You have thought out your words carefully like you always do. You have chosen your deepest genuine feelings. You are a woman of God, so you have chosen to sever this tie peacefully. Say what you want to say. Don’t feel weak; those thoughts of weakness are not from God. I don’t know. I just don’t know. I feel absent from my own life. Do I really have to do this today? Here I go. I walked towards the place where my sister and my brother-in-law would meet me. I was purposelessly rummaging through my purse. I was nervous. The word nervous doesn’t do any justice to what I was feeling at that moment today. Seeing the faces of my sister and her husband calmed my soul like nothing else could have done. They are my angels in this place. “Hi, yeah, I feel fine. The car is just a couple minutes away. Thanks so much for doing this with me. Yeah, I am nervous. I don’t know if I can do this. I brought the paper. I want to say it out loud to his face, but I am scared. I might just leave the paper and keys with him, and not say anything. I don’t want to do it that way. I don’t know, I’ll figure it out when I get there. Turn left here, it’s right on that hill. Okay, I’ll turn around and then we can get on the freeway at Crown Valley. Yeah, I’ll call you if I need to before I go talk to him. Okay, see you in a little bit.”

It feels weird to be in this car again. It feels routine. I like ‘Freedom’ better now. He is mine. Turn up the heat, turn on the radio, and drive. I listened to one song as I merged onto the freeway. It was something dumb and mindless that I was singing to as an escape. Sarah, turn off the radio. You don’t need it. It is not helpful on this drive. You don’t have a lot of time to prepare your heart for this. You have only 25 minutes to get ready to do what you’ve been wanting to do since you were eleven years old. This is an important drive and you should be seriously thinking about the events which are soon to take place. Turn off the radio and be alone with yourself. Pray to your God who loves you. Talk to the one who has always been here for you. Tell him how you feel. Express your horror. Ask Him for His peace. Weep in His presence. He will hear you, He will listen to you, and He will save you from the uneasy feeling which is dwelling within your heart. Talk to him Sarah. Talk to you. Don’t escape this event in your life. It will change you. This day will continue to piece you back together again to the wholeness which you so deserve. Turn off the radio Sarah: sit with Jesus. “Dear Lord, please love me right now. I hate the fact that I come to you in times of deepest need, and I am too weak to come to you most days. I’m sorry Jesus. I don’t have it all figured out. I have this knot in my heart right now. I feel like I am on my way to do one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. My life lessons keep pouring like the rain. How much do you have for me Lord? Will you use my life because of all I have made it through? I need you right now. Please give me peace when I speak with my father. Please give me strength. Please dear Lord, speak for me as I am too broken to speak for myself. I need to do this today. I don’t know why I wasn’t given a father who is capable of loving me purely and knowing me genuinely. I am worthy of love, yet I know it not. This man is one who you’ve used to bring me here. I do not know him at all, nor have I ever known him Lord. The only reason he speaks to me is because of his financial support through allowing me to drive his car. He doesn’t know his daughter, nor has he ever fought to know me. Lord, please, as I go to do this, calm my shaking hands and my childlike heart. Thank you Lord, I love You.” Sarah, do you feel ready to be bold and completely truthful with this man who has hurt you so much. I’m not ready. What if I am wrong in doing this? What if he doesn’t understand? What if he doesn’t hear me? He has never heard me, so why do it now? Maybe I won’t say these things to him. I took out the paper and glanced at it. I am glad I wrote these things down. I am really thankful that I have written them down. If I had not written them down, I might have not spoken what I actually intended to say to his expressionless face. Do you remember? Do you remember all of the pain? Little pieces of you died each day as a child. This man needs to hear what you have to say. You are not speaking these words to change his mind. You want nothing. You realize nothing will come. You are so strong. You’ve been forced to be strong. Do you remember the night he swung you around by the shirt collar? Do you remember your fear? Do you remember being scared? Do you remember being horrified? Do you remember the countless nights you heard him screaming at your feeble mother? Do you remember the night you stood with Timothy by the front door and pondered walking away forever? Do you remember the nights you fell asleep in tears with only the comfort from the light of the moon? Do you remember when he hit …? Do you remember when he demanded you to do anything and everything at his beckon call? Do you remember how he was never there? Do you remember how he called you selfish? Do you remember how he used to call 20 times a day and leave threatening messages on your mom’s answering machine? Do you remember Sarah? Do you remember how he said you don’t know God? Do you remember how he told you that those you love are going to Hell? This is that same man. You can do this. Do you remember how he abused …? Do you remember how she went through that and you couldn’t help her? Do you remember how he convinced her of lies and shattered her little girl’s soul? That is it… yes, that emotion right there. It has triggered you. Take that, take that anger which you feel right now towards him and let it be your strength. You are not weak. You are meant for more than a life bound by this misery which is wrapped up in this man. Go on, do what you came to do, and explore what else there is beyond this wall. This is your day of Freedom: go and make it yours.

I pulled up to the apartment complex like I have done several painful times before. It felt different this time. This time I was in control. I was the one who would determine the destiny of this anticipated conversation. “Yeah, park right here. His apartment is right there on the corner. I will be fine. I will be right back.” I walked confidently in the direction of my dreams at that moment. I shook like I haven’t shaken since the day I taught my first lesson to high school students. I knew I had to do this. I knew nothing could be taken away from me now; I was giving back the only thing that this man was holding over my stubborn head. I walked up the stairs and looked back down again. I kept walking up though. I was ready; I had to be ready. When I got to the top of the stairs I waited a moment before I knocked on the door. I made sure that I surrendered to Christ. His will and not mine. I looked down and in front of me I saw a cheap door mat. My father lived with a Romanian woman in a small two-bedroom apartment in Brea, California. He lived a life which I will never understand. How has he come to this? The door mat looked like it belonged in a child’s bedroom. It was blue with vivid splashes of yellow and green with hints of red. Who picked that out? It made me think of the pharmacy in Lake Tahoe. Only briefly though. I didn’t have time or strength to develop that memory from my lost childhood which was a lie to begin with.

I knocked on the door which read X205. My father opened the door. He looked like I expected him to look. He was wearing the same outfit that he was wearing when I saw him last weekend. He always did that: wear the same outfit for days at a time. He was wearing blue pants and a tan shirt: tucked in and closed off from the world as he always had been. I walked in slowly and tentatively. The first thing I said was, “Hi, I just have some things I want to talk to you about.” He asked if I wanted his wife to leave the room and I said yes. I said that I wanted only to talk to him. She is caught up in his game; I pity her pain that will eventually and undoubtedly rupture. She left the room. I sat on the pink couch on one side of the room, and he sat across from me on a white couch. I sat on the edge of the couch; I wasn’t staying long. I began with this, “There’s no easy way to say this to you, so I am going to read a few things.” I didn’t ask if it was okay. I didn’t care if he wanted to hear what I had to say: he was going to listen. I have lived 23 years; I deserve to finally be heard. I began to read my list:

1. I appreciate the financial support you have shown me through allowing me to drive your car.

2. I feel that you let me down as a little girl and failed to be the father I have needed ever since.

3. I feel it is important for me to independent of all financial support from you.

4. I am angry that you got caught up in your own life and mistakes and did not love me the way I needed.

5. I have been without a dad for a long time, and I don’t like the fact that our relationship exists because of this car.

6. I was grateful to having been given the opportunity to drive your car when I could not make ends meet on my own. So, thank you for that.

7. For what it is worth, I feel as though I don’t even know you. Driving your car feels inorganic, and I would rather let go of that solely financial attachment to you.

8. I wish things were different, but in actuality I don’t feel that a relationship with you is in my best interest.

9. You do not put any effort into investing in my life as your daughter, and I realize that will probably continue without you ever genuinely caring to know who I am and who I have become.

10. This is not so much a goodbye as it is a realization that you yourself said goodbye to your responsibility to me many years ago when you weren’t strong enough to show me pure love.

While I was reading the first few points he reverted back to the man I remembered. Things like this always bring that evil man to the surface. He can’t hide when he is under attack. He began to speak. He began to pick apart my words as if we were in a court of law. I was strong, I was scared, my hands were shaking, my words were not completely clear, and I asked him to let me finish. I said another one of my sentences, and he began to interject once more. Again I said, “Please let me finish, I want to get through this; it isn’t easy for me.” I read these honest words out loud to his face. I said things like, “I am angry that you didn’t love me the way I needed, you let me down as a little girl and ever since, I don’t even know you, you don’t put effort into investing in my life as your daughter, you will continue never genuinely knowing who I have become, and you weren’t strong enough to show me pure love.”

I said all of those things I have kept inside for so long. He just sat there. I looked up a couple of times into those eyes which I have never known. It was reassuring to know that he couldn’t take anything away from me because I was saying all of this. I am independent of him now. I am free. I said, “Here are your keys, your car is parked right outside.” He said something stupid like, “Okay, thank you.” I walked down the stairs and towards the rest of my life. I felt safe knowing that I was leaving that dirty corner of my heart behind me. My father still doesn’t love me: he is still gone. That hasn’t changed, and it probably never will. I didn’t take this step for love; I took it in hopes to grow and become a more complete person. I don’t know how he felt. I don’t know if that man is capable of feeling. I felt comforted by the fact that I had only a matter of steps to take before I joined April and Jeff in their car. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else there with me. I didn’t have to explain my feelings, intentions or emotions. April is the only one who truly knows what it’s like to do something like this, and Jeff knows what we’re going through, because he loves April genuinely and he has made every attempt to support every broken piece of her past. They said they were proud of me. April asked me a couple questions which I don’t exactly recall. My heart was still racing and beating quickly from the surreal event that I had just conquered. “I read it, I read the whole thing. I said what I wanted to say and then left.” I read them aloud to Jeff. He gave me a high five and they reassured me that this was the right decision for me. It was so good to have them there. I could not have done it without them. Knowing they were waiting for me made me strong. They love me; I believe them when they tell me that they love me.

Today I did one of the hardest things I have ever done. I severed the last tie to my father. It has been a long time coming. It has taken longer than I wanted it to. I was ready today. It happened as I have imagined that it would. I wanted it to be on my terms, and it was. I didn’t want to be bitter and violent; I wasn’t. I wanted to sit in front of the man who has caused me unexplainable pain, look into his eyes, and audibly say those thoughts that have been crowding the flow of my broken heart. My journey is not over, and I am not complete. This is one step along the way. In regards to this man, it is finished: I know Freedom.

By: Sarah Flanagan