To every child caught in between their parents — this is for you.

Dear Joyce,

You are the little girl I once was — the child who carried the weight of her parents’ conflict and wondered if she was the reason someone left.

I first met you again in the thick of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. As I began the quiet work of healing with you, I realised that your small, sad smile carried a tremendous weight of guilt, shame and grief.

You could not understand why your father was not around. You thought it was your fault that he left. You tried so hard to fill the empty space left behind with your tiny frame. You carried a burden that was never yours to carry.

But you could not put it down because it was the only story you knew about your family.

When I looked up from where I was seated with you, I saw that we were sitting together on the tombstone of your relationship with your father. Beneath the guilt, shame and sadness was a grief that had been felt but never named.

You had been missing your father for many years.

You missed him at your birthdays. You missed him when you graduated from school. You missed him when you landed your first job. You missed him when your heart was broken by the boy who did not love you back.

Even though he was physically alive, he felt psychologically absent.

You grew up feeling like a fatherless daughter — unwanted, unloved and unworthy of affection. You believed that your father’s absence was a reflection of your worth.

For many years, the people around you did not fully understand your pain.

When you shared about your parents’ difficult relationship, some responded, “My parents fought too,” or “At least your father is still alive.”

They did not understand that there is a particular kind of grief that comes from losing a relationship that was never fully there.

Until one day, a perfect stranger responded differently.

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

Those simple words acknowledged a pain you had carried quietly for years. For the first time, someone saw the wound beneath the story.

That moment began a journey that changed the way you saw yourself, your father and your family.

After your pain was acknowledged, you began spending time in conversations with divorced fathers who were estranged from their children through your work as a marital and divorce counsellor. You heard stories of fathers who wanted relationships with their young children but found themselves unable to bridge the distance created by difficult relationships with their former spouses.

You began to entertain a possibility you had never considered before:

Maybe, just maybe, your father’s absence was not because you were unwanted. Maybe there was another story.

Then one day, you sat down with your father over coffee and asked him the question you had carried for years:

“Did you really not want me?”

His answer changed something inside you.

He told you that his struggles with your mother existed even before you were born. Their inability to remain together as a married couple was never because of you.

He told you that he never meant to abandon you. Things had become complicated and painful, and leaving the marriage felt like the only way forward.

He described himself as the parent who did not want King Solomon to cut the baby in half (1 Kings 3:26). For the first time, you saw his absence through a different lens.

Perhaps he was not a father who did not love you. Perhaps he was a father who loved you within the limitations of his circumstances.

I know you still grieve the years you lost with him. You sometimes wonder what it would have been like to grow up as the daughter who was cherished by her father. You wonder about the birthdays, milestones and ordinary moments that could have been shared.

It is okay to grieve what you did not receive.

But Joyce, your story does not end there.

Your experiences have shaped you into the person you are today. They have given you a sensitivity towards children who carry invisible burdens. They have taught you the importance of presence, connection and love. Perhaps a child who once felt fatherless became someone who understood deeply why fathers matter.

Joyce, you were never meant to tend the grave of your relationship with your father forever. You were meant to bring joy into the relationships around you. Let your sorrow turn into joy. Let your mourning turn into dancing.

You were never truly fatherless or unloved. You may have felt fatherless and unloved for many years, but feelings are not always the full truth. The truth is far more nuanced and beautiful than the story you were first told. Your father loved you, even if he loved you imperfectly.

So enjoy the remaining time you have with your father. Get to know him not only through the lens of your mother’s pain, but also as a person with his own wounds, limitations and humanity. Embrace the good, the difficult and the complicated parts of who he is.

You are free to laugh with him, to love him, and to have your own individual relationship with him.

You do not have to be the referee in your parents’ unsolvable conflict. You were never meant to carry the weight of their marriage on your little shoulders. You were a child.

You were meant to be loved by them. You were meant to be mothered and fathered.

Lovingly,

Florence

Florence is founder of a mental health nonprofit organisation by day, and a counsellor in private practice by night.

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