I'm sure it was very insulting to be told by your 20 year old daughter that you are an idiot in her eyes. Especially since you're such a respectable man. You've been a teacher, a lecturer, a professor, a leader, an author, a family man, the man that everyone relied on. You deserve respect in the eyes of most who know you, but somehow I feel different.
I don't know how to respect you when I have never known or been shown true love by you. Heck, I'm only really assuming that you love me at all, no doubt because of some genetic obligation to do so. I've never been taught a life lesson by you, have never watch you practice what you preach or lead by example. Have never seen you be the boss, be a hero, be a husband, be a father to anyone. I don't know you. Not outside of the walls of this telephone line. Save the few encounters we've had of course. The court house must have been my favourite.
Well it's been two years since I've seen you now. Maybe I need another family member to die for you to remember that your daughter needs love. To remember that your existence doesn't comfort me without visible efforts of caring and compassion. I know you're there, and I also know that you're not. So believe me, your mere existence does nothing in the way of positive feelings for me.
Sometimes I think I'd have been better off believing you never cared enough to make contact with me. That act gave me so much hope. It made me believe that you could be all those things I had never seen you be. Hero, father, friend. And now, after four years of knowing you, which were honestly just four more years of not knowing you, you wonder why I know how to cuss you out...
You're welcome to come and give me reasons to respect you. Until then, you remain exactly what I said you were. An idiot.
