What Forgiveness Looks Like At The End

I was 23 when my dad died.

He was only 53. And while I wish I could say we had a lifetime of memories, the truth is more complicated than that.

Addiction took him from me long before death ever did.

There were years I felt angry. Years I asked myself how a bottle could mean more than his daughters. And yet…

I held his hand when he took his last breath.

Forgiveness didn’t happen because I fully understood him. It happened because I had to release the pain to keep living.

Because carrying it was breaking me.

Looking back, I now understand something I didn’t before:

Just like I wrote to escape the chaos around me, maybe drinking was his escape from the chaos inside him.

That realization didn’t excuse his absence—but it softened the ache.

He missed out on so much.

But he gave me something I didn’t see at the time.

A deeper understanding of pain.

A reason to write.

And a fire in me to choose differently.

Grief is messy. Forgiveness is not always loud.

Sometimes it looks like whispering, “I still love you,” as someone fades away.

Even if they never showed up the way you needed.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.