The Letter that didn't get sent

I wrote a letter to my father Guillermo, last year in November.  I sealed it in an envelope and placed it in a drawer.  My intention was to give it to him personally.  I forgot all about the letter when I went to see him a few weeks ago before he died.

Today I remembered the letter.  Took it out of the drawer and read it.

In the letter, I expressed to my father that I had forgiven him for being an estranged father for many years.  I needed his presence in my life, but God always found a way to fill that emptiness in my heart that my father could not fill.

I acknowledged the fact that my father Guillermo had grown up without a father figure in his life, therefore he was not able to be there for his own daughters.  My paternal grandfather abandoned his wife and children and never returned.  My paternal grandmother had to raise her four children all on her own.  The children suffer bulling from other children in their neighborhood and other close relatives.

Those children grew up and made families of their own.  Years later a letter came to my father's sister.  The letter was from a man claiming to be her father.  Indeed the man was their father and was living in  another state of Mexico.  My aunt and uncle were the only ones to go meet him and renewed a relationship with their father.

Not my father Guillermo.  He was so full of anger and resentment towards his father.  As well as my other aunt.  They both never got to meet their father.  I did.

I asked my step-father to take me to that town where my paternal grandfather lived to meet him. I'm thankful to God and  Dad (step-father) for being able to meet my paternal grandfather.  I have pictures of this unforgettable moment.

Likewise my paternal grandfather grew up without a father in his life. And the story got repeated in the life of my father and in my life.  However, this cycle needed to end.  God showed mercy on my sister and I and sent us a wonderful Dad (step-father).  A man who has done so much for us all.   For that reason we call him  Dad.

As for our biological father.  God allowed us to meet him again after 21 years.  We saw him in the last days of his life.  We saw a man that was very old and frail due to his terminal illness.  I saw my father Guillermo weep of sadness.  He was sad that we had to see him dying.  Vulnerable in his death bed.  I saw a man that was concerned not for his own life, but for that one girl he had grown to love over the years as a grand-daughter.  The one girl that will take him into her home and care for him when he had been drinking for days and ended up on the streets abandoned.

"What will happen to her", he asked us.   I told him not to worry.  God will send another person to her life that will care for her.  "You have done all that you were able to do for her, do not worry, God will take care of her.", I reassured him.

I'm thankful to God for the blessings in my father's life just before he died.  He met his grandchildren.  He got to see people he had not seen in years. Cousins, uncles, nephews, sisters and brother.

He was able to talk to a Priest and receive the Sacrament of the Sick (Annointing).  An uncle brought a Pastor friend also, and I prayed with them.  I know God was with us.  He will not abandon us.

My father Guillermo died November 21, at 9:05 AM .  A year before, on November 16, 2011, I wrote a letter that didn't get sent, but I was able to express some of the words in my phone calls and he was able to see me again and now that I was there, praying and holding his hand, his last four days.

Rest in peace father Guillermo. May the Lord Jesus receive you in his arms into eternity. Amen! I will see you again there, someday.