To the man who stole my dad away from me,
You must have expected a letter from me would find it’s way to you eventually. It’s taken me many years to finally put to paper what I’d like to say to you. To begin, I’ll bring up a day that will forever be in my mind that occurred this past summer. I’m not sure if you recall, but this past July, a week or so before the anniversary of my dad’s death, you picked your son up from the community youth center—the place I happen to work at. Words can’t even begin to explain how hard and heartbreaking it was for me to hold back my tears and anger so I could tell you about your son’s day. You couldn’t so much but look at me that day—I’m not even sure you knew who I was, but when I turned around to see you standing in the doorway, my heart dropped to my stomach knowing I was going to have to speak to the man who so stupidly stole my daddy away from me 18 years ago.
Over the past 18 years, I’ve had somebody very important missing in my life to watch me grow up. When I was in elementary school, I didn’t have my daddy to video tape my Christmas programs and tell me how pretty I looked in my dresses. I was never able to give my dad homemade gifts on Fathers Day like I watched my friends do every year. When I started dating my high school boyfriend at age 15, I didn’t get to watch him nervously shake my dad’s hand after introducing them to each other. Instead, I eventually brought him to the cemetery on my dad’s birthday to “introduce” them. When this same boy took me to prom, I, again, didn’t have my dad here to tell me how beautiful I looked in my dress, to video record me coming up the stairs, and to sternly tell my boyfriend to “have me back by 11:00 p.m." When I had my heart broken two years later, I didn’t have my dad’s shoulder to cry on like I so badly needed to. Instead of my dad watching me give the welcome address and walk across the stage during my high school graduation, I again found myself at the cemetery, leaving my purple and gold tassel on his headstone. On college move in day, my dad wasn’t able to help carry my entire life up 9 flights of stairs in 90-degree weather and I didn’t get to hug him goodbye with tear filled eyes—instead my eyes filled with tears because this is just another milestone that he has had to miss in my life because of the choice you made.
You’ve had over 18 years to apologize to me and I have yet to hear anything from you, not that I’m even surprised. From what I’ve heard from my mom, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, my dad and I were very close and I was very much a daddy’s girl. All of these memories that I so badly want to remember are suppressed by the one memory I wish I could forget about my dad: the day I saw him for the last time, laying dead in his casket at his wake. My only memory is one that has haunted me for 18 years—I placed one of my baby dolls in his casket to be buried with him and said my goodbyes at 2 years old. You not only ripped my daddy away from me on July 16th, 1997, but you ripped away all my memories as well. All I am left with now are pictures, videos, and stories of things I can’t even remember.
I just recently celebrated my 21st birthday—the age when I am legally able to consume alcohol. I’d be lying if I said I waited until I was legal to drink, but something I would never even think of doing is driving drunk. The choice you made on July 16th, 1997 was an idiotic and irresponsible choice—a choice that took an innocent man’s life away from him. He was a father, husband, son, brother, uncle, cousin, and a friend to so many people and I hope you live with the guilt of stealing him from us every day.
Included in this letter are 3 photos. The first one is of a happy 2-year-old little girl with not a care in the world. The second photo is of that little girl with her daddy that she loved so very much. And the third photo is the face of that same girl who has had to live without her dad for almost her entire life. The face of a young woman who feels awkward saying the word “dad”, who falls asleep at the cemetery on warm summer days while visiting him, who is jealous of her friends and their dads when she sees them interacting, who cries every Father’s Day, and who will never forget what you did to her family on July 16th, 1997. This is also the face of a college junior majoring in education just like her mom, who just got accepted into both teaching programs at UWEC and who has a wonderful life, despite what has happened in her past. My dad wouldn’t want me to be sad—this I know for sure. He would want me to be living the life that you took from him. I can’t deny the fact that I have a great life, family, and future ahead of me, but I also can’t deny that underneath it all, I am still, and always will be, hurting because of what you took from me.
As your daughter continues to grow up, she is going to pass many milestones. Milestones like prom, graduation, her first heartbreak, and college move in day. Milestones she will be so lucky to have her daddy here to share these moments with. Someday, she is going to fall in love with the man she will marry. And on her wedding day, as you are walking her down the aisle and dancing her father-daughter dance, that every girl dreams about, I hope I cross your mind—because only then will you truly understand what you have stolen from me.
Hailey Richardson
