The Goodbye I Was Never Given | A Letter to My Biological Father

Dear Ashley,

I don't even know where to start.
Maybe that's because I never got the chance to start anything with you at all.

You were already gone before I even took my first breath.
Gone by choice.
Gone because... what? Fear? Shame? Love for someone else?
I'll never know, will I?
That's the part that really guts me... the not knowing.

For most of my life, I held onto this stubborn little thread of hope.
Hope that one day you would call.
That one day you would want to see me, to know me.
That you'd realize I wasn't something you had to hide or run from... I was just your daughter.
Your blood.
Half of everything you were.

I clung to that dream even when you broke promises.
Even when you pretended you were on your way but never showed up.
Even when the excuses started sounding more and more like lies.
Even when you said your wife might leave you if you met me... as if loving your daughter from a previous marriage was some kind of betrayal.
I still held on.

Like a fool, maybe.
Or maybe like a little girl who just wanted her dad to love her.

I kept thinking: if I could just be good enough, if I could just accomplish enough, maybe you'd be proud.
Maybe then you’d want to know me.
Maybe then you’d look at me and finally want me.

But you never did.

And now... you never will.

Because you're dead.

I didn’t find out you had died because someone reached out to tell me.
No, no one thought I mattered enough for that.

I found out by accident... in a copy-and-pasted message from my half-sister.
A message asking for donations for something completely unrelated, slipping your death into a sentence like a side note.
Not a phone call.
Not a letter.
Not even a text meant just for me.
Just five words squeezed between a GoFundMe link:"My dad died in August."

You were gone for months before I even knew you were dead.
And honestly, I don't know which part hurts worse...

that you died without ever knowing me, or that no one thought I even deserved to know you were gone.

I went online and found your funeral page.
No obituary.
No words.
Just a name and a date.
January 20, 1963 – August 18, 2024.
That's all the world recorded of your life in that moment.
And nowhere on that page was there even a hint that I existed.

I guess I never did... not to you.

You know what's ironic?
You got to carry your father's name.
Ashley Winston Poitevint, Jr.
A son proud enough to wear his father's name like a badge of honor.
Meanwhile, I was left with no name, no history, no roots.
Raised wearing my grandparents’ last name, Wickman... one of the few things I am still fiercely proud of.
And later, taking my stepfather’s last name when he adopted me... because even if he was flawed, he chose me.
He made me his.
You never did.

And still...
Still, I ache for you.
Still, part of me feels like that little girl waiting by the window, believing every lie you told because it was better than believing the truth... that you just didn’t want me.

I don’t know how you died.
I don’t know if you were sick, or if it was sudden.
I don’t know if you thought about me even once before you left this world.
Maybe you didn’t.
Maybe it’s better that I don’t know.

But I do know this:
I am more than the man who abandoned me.
I am more than the girl you didn’t want.
I am more than the grief you left behind.

I am my own name.
I am my own legacy.
And I am still standing... stronger than you ever knew, because you never bothered to look.

Goodbye, Ashley.
I hope you found the peace you couldn’t find here.
As for me, I’m still searching.
But every day, I get a little closer.

And none of that is because of you.
It's in spite of you.

— Kristanna