fathers and daughter / children

i think when you hear other people's life stories, their journeys, childhoods and traumas, you take grace, gratitude, and patience, if not getting a changed perspective on your arrangement and relations...

i realize, and i have stated previously, that i was lucky, several times over.

the main luck and blessing i focus on though is that my father never left me and us, his children, my brother...who he said was not his by the way. whether that is true of not, i would never know. but he used to say, that he never left us because he did not want anyone to come and abuse or take advantage of us. and when he used to say that would you believe I had no idea of what he spoke. only in my later years, am i in touch with the reality of abuse, incest, rape, advantage, mistreatment, exposure, insecurity, (there may have been emotional insecurity, but never any physical risk of such)

and these things seem so prevalent. with so many people, celebrities, to regular folk. then to hear how common it is for people to have grown up without a mother or father present. and i know too the difference of having someone present but in variations of vacant.

i dont know. it is a lot.

but i am thinking, in hindsight, maybe I need to give my father a break.

and i have. i always have. cause i knew what he came through. my father did something most parents dont do, that my mother even, did not do. he told us about his life, to the point where i can recite his stories as if they are mine. and just for staying present, and covering us, that is something in comparison i can praise and thank him for. then for supplying me to the exceeding level that he did. we wanted for nothing and our lives, my brothers and I, were exceptional, materially speaking. i could but wont speak for my mother. for while she too benefited, I know better than to speak at the cost for which a woman finds security. but my marina loved her some carl, down to the last breath and life she had.

so maybe even now, shall i forgive him for his trespasses toward me in adult life? that is the issue. that is the proposition. i waver, back and forth on this