Dear Daddy,

As you may have already guessed, somebody said something to me that made me sit back and reflect. They said I worshipped you. Made you seem like a better man than you really were. That hurt my soul. That hurt my heart. Ultimately I am a daddy’s little girl.

But I would like to think that through my writing I show nothing but complete honesty. Daddy you were a drug dealer and you use to abuse women.

This was a part of you that I did not like—did not think that was right. I could never condone what you had did. And what made it worst was the fact that you did it in front of your kids.

But you were my dad. And you were my world. You were the first man that I ever loved.

I worshipped you. I made you seem like a better man than you really were.

Naturally, I have to come to your defense when someone talks bad about you. But then I think about your victims—the people that you hurt. They have every right to think bad about you and view you as a jerk.

And it’s hard to be a child of an abuser. The things that I’ve experienced. The things that I’ve witnessed.

But you were the man that I loved and I loved you unconditionally.

I worshipped you. I made you seem like a better man than you really were.

Sometimes I wonder what was going through yo mind and how you thought it was cool—to put yo hands on a woman and leave her body bruised.

But you were just a man, so daddy you were flawed. You tried to correct your wrongs as soon as you met God.

You tried to correct you ways through me.

“Never let a man disrespect you.”

“Kill a nigga dead if he put his hands on you the wrong way.” These were just some of the things that you used to say.

I worshipped you. I made you seem like a better man than you really were.

It was the way that you changed that showed me what type of man you really were. I enjoyed the man that you had become.

I am the woman that I am today due to you—strong, confident, determined, ambitious.

I worshipped you. I made you seem like a better man than you really were.

I have to disagree.

You were my dad, so I loved you for the man that you were. You were an abuser, but that’s not all that you had become.