Letter to my estranged parents
This 27 May, I sent a letter to my estranged parents.
This is my handcrafted translation from French to English.
There are sensitive topics in here. They may upset some people. This will also explain some unnatural phrasing for English.
27 May 2025 A quiet place on Earth
Hello,
I am writing to you without hatred or anger. I want to share with you what you missed from the life of the person who colocated with you for the first 25 years of his life.
My memories of you start when:
- I became my father's bad secretary when he was doing my homework for school,
- I was slapped in the face at least once every evening during diner, when – for example – I was commenting on the incompleteness of the information provided by the TV news,
- I was getting shouted at by my father for unjustified reasons, which generated in me a feeling of unfairness and frustration that I used to voice out in a way that pointed out at the inconsistencies of the situation, for which I would invariably get slapped or whipped (literally),
- I was awaken and dragged out of bed by one of you, as you were arguing in the corridor, as to use me as a spectator for your dramatic sadistic-masochistic duets: mother in tears in a heap on the floor, angry father - his ugly fat belly exposed - conjuring her to get up on her feet while threatening her of physical violences or simply dragging her on the corridor carpet or the kitchen tiles, mother standing up with in hand the long kitchen knife with the tip pressing on my father's belly while both of you were using verbal provocations toward one another.
These are the images you left me with.
From this period onward I thought a lot about committing suicide.
For most kids in my situation the school results would have come down in flames. But that couldn't happen to me. It's around my 30s that work colleagues and a psychologist got me on track to understand why. In my 50s, after seeing my children fly away from the nest, after obtaining a Ph.D., after getting divorced, I finally accepted that I am kind, gentle, humanist, intellectually gifted, that money is of no interest to me, that my actions are consistent with my words and my values, that a number of people see that... and that a handful can actually happily live with me without ever exploiting me.
And that's around our 55 that we meet. At last.
I am in good health, therefore I have a number of beautiful years ahead of me to finish a life that has become a blast from the moment I left France – thanks to you.
I do thank you from the bottom of my heart for providing the reasons in order for me to leave, and to realise a large part of my potential. I also thank you for illustrating, day after day, the unhealthy behaviours in a couple, as a parent, with family members, with friends, at Christmas, at birthdays...
Soon after I met my current partner, I asked her to not give me presents at Christmas or at my birthday. And yet I could easily change that behaviour in me: I am entirely spectator of the process, I know the root causes, I can imaging how I could sincerely welcome gifts on these days, and I know how to unplug the disgust you imprinted in me and replace it with a behaviour of reciprocal pleasure (I did that for many other topics). But you see, there's an advantage about seeing this little scar itching twice a year: it allows me to recognise the people who actually care for me, because they know how to put my wellbeing before their own desire to please themselves with a material gift.
A few months ago, I started to figure out the most plausible cause for my father to treat me as badly as he did, and for my mother to withstand physical and psychological violences, directly, and indirectly through the violences made on me by her husband.
Here are the essential bits of memory, that I stitched together in order to arrive to my conclusion:
- 15 years ago, I carried out genealogical research, mainly to the benefit of my children. In the first DNA analysis, my markers were centred for one half on the United-Kingdom, and for another half on the Mediterranean. I laughed within, for I know that at least one of you did vote for the far right. Recently the analysis got refined: half of my genes come from Ireland and Scotland, the other half comes from Spain (and its rich Arab heritage!). The Irish and Scottish heritage is explained by the oral history on my maternal side. However the Spanish heritage is not consistent with my father's family that stayed centred on a small French village for 200 years. And yet my Mediterranean heritage cannot be doubted: I tan well and fast, I always established clean good links with people around the Mediterranean. In "Le Petit Prince", St-Exupéry wrote: "The essential is invisible with the eyes...". Gosh! I agree.
- I have none of the physical traits of my father or his parents: I have thick lips, I am way taller, I am slender, I don't drink, I have beautiful white hair, I am not intellectually challenged.
- And then there were the words that my father was serving to anyone would listen to when I was present: "He is definitely the son of his mother, but for the father? No one ever knows!", and "He is a luxury dog.".
Let's be honest "Dad": the chances you are my biological father are rather slim. The behaviour you started to exhibit when I was around 10y old makes me think that someone implanted the doubt in your mind, and that this doubt grew rapidly in a certainty.
I talked about it to the rest of the family, and it clicked from them. Almost instantly a name was provided as my potential father: my mother's former boyfriend who never married after she married you. People tell me he was tall, slender, kind, gentle... just like me.
He passed away 3 years ago. Too bad.
So what now?
The little fat man, rooter and rapist at time, who played the role of father... was he sterile? Did my mother made a baby in the back of her husband with her former boyfriend, or a customer or her boss when she was a maid in a Parisian hotel? Did she consent or was she raped? Was she ever happy of it or filled with regrets?
One day I'd like to learn the chronology of the events that led to my birth, and what made you derail as parents.
Now I have been "father", at least twice as much as you were ever, I can affirm that neither of you fulfilled your roles as providers of disinterested love and protection. It is the family of my mother who did put me on the right path, not you. The rest I made it by myself, and that was not that complicated. I was not perfect, and I give myself a 7 out of 10. As for you, I give you 1 out of 10, for the 3 meals a day you invariably provided me with. And I thank you for that.
I'd like to be able to tell your story, properly. People like that I tell them my itinerary in life, the reasons behind my decisions, the things that worked out, those that didn't work as well as expected. Several told me it did put a light at the end of the tunnel, or provided them with the guidance offered by a lighthouse. I think I know why: I am profoundly human in a profoundly dehumanised society. For the time being, the only things I can tell about you is what I wrote above: where I am at in my research, my thoughts about it. My feelings? I detached them from my memories a long time ago. That is why there's no anger. I have understood the essential and it is already very good. Getting to know the rest would be like the icing on the cake.
We are getting to the end of this letter.
I don't kiss or hug you in any way or form.
I have no hatred, no anger.
And yet I have a little bit of sympathy for you.
I wish you to find peace. Telling the truth helps.
I also wish you to find real happiness, even for a short moment.
Last detail: I am without a fixed address, and for that I have never been as happy as today.
There is no address to send your reply to: you will have to find another way. A sealed letter that I will discover when the last of you is dead will do the job. I am not in a hurry.
Be brave!
Your son.