Two weeks ago my father died. I didn't get to say goodbye to him, as we had had a rocky relationship for 20 years. Basically since he married my step mother. The reason for this is our step mother emotionally abused us. She would do things that if the authorities had known, we would have been taken into care and she would have been arrested. The things she used to do was put white spirits in my sisters milk, when my sister was just 10/11 years old. She did this 3 times. She would put bleach on my sisters clothes and even cut her clothes up. To my other sister she had undone all of the stitching in her school uniform, so that when my sister put it on, the whole uniform just fell off of her. She forced my brother to get in a bath full of disinfectant. She also stole from us, and would tell lies about us to our dad. There were many other circumstances that took place, and with each of these things my dad stood by and did nothing. Because of this we lost a lot of respect for him, as he was supposed to protect us but, he didn't.
We didn't want to be put in a children's home as we knew we would have been split up, and also our dad would be in trouble. Although he stood by and let this happen, we still loved him. So we kept our mouths shut, although our neighbours knew what was going on they also did nothing, as they were friends with my dad and step mum.
As the years went by we grew to hate our step mother, and this caused us to be distant with our father. He began to see us as the problem and not our step mother. So we drew back, and decided to not be in his life anymore, because we couldn't take the stress and the hassle which came along with knowing my father and step mother. In his eyes she had done nothing wrong.
Just over a year ago, he approached my sister to let us know he was very ill. Sadly we didn't take it seriously, having already been told by our step mother a few years ago that he had died, and it turned out to be a hoax by her.
But My dad died on the 1st December 2007, our step mother didn't phone us to say he was in his last weeks/days.
Although we didn't get on with our father, we loved him dearly, but no matter how close we tried to get to him, he would push us away. Our step mother was always right there. In the times we would visit him a few years ago, I would have to watch my step mother pouring my son a coke, as I feared she would put bleach or something else that was poison in his drink. My dad would say, 'you can trust her'. But we knew we couldn't, she had done too much damage to us as we were growing up, and when you treat children badly, those children grow up and they never forget.
I will always regret not making up with my dad, and I wish we had met just once and were able to speak honestly, and I would have loved to tell him how much I loved and cared for him. But one thing I do know is, life goes on, well that's what I believe and I know my dad knows the truth now, and he can see all that has gone on and is going on now. He will know how much his son and daughters love him.
