Willa

Chapter Thirty Nine: Years pass slow

Please, forgive me.

Allie x

***

"It's time Willa, time to have this conversation" Mary reminds me as we pull up to my family home of old. "It's time to let go of it all and be honest. Time for them to say their peace and move forward in some way with you... the in between is not enough"

"It's not" I agree, as we step out and I look up at the home I grew up in. My throat feels as if it is closing on sight of it.

The front door opens and my mom steps out "welcome home my darling" she says sweetly.

I feel absolutely nothing. I am still emotionally assaulted from my encounter with Allie this week, and the funeral of Helena. I am kind of a walking, talking zombie with no senses working, nothing at all. I shouldn't perhaps have entertained this idea of seeing my parents and feeling out a road to forgiveness and peace. I quite honestly had no more to give, not to them, not to anyone. I would let Mary lead the conversation, and one day when my mind worked, and the cogs turned...I would take it in, what happened this day.

It of course started with the letter my father had pressed into my pocket the day of the funeral.

My Willa,

You will always be, my Willa. Whether I recognise you now or not, my darling daughter, our youngest child, that's you, and nothing changes that, let me tell you that first.

You are our child, our blood and you know if you ever needed me I would come to you in a heartbeat.

I am quite ashamed, my child, that I sent you away that summer, that you did indeed stay away, and that we didn't come and bring you home. Every day that you were absent it got harder to come. I needed you to be the one to come back to us. I was wrong! I am your father and I should have brought you home and sent you to college myself. I see now, that sending you away, all it did was make this worse. To have you go and live with Mary, how silly of us, you went straight to a home of sin. How would you ever find Christ again there?! Homosexuals seem like they live freely out there Willa, but they need Christ, and you need him. I would love you to return, to us, to him, to church, we all still long for it, for you to be here back with your family. I heard you and Morgan separated, and I knew it then that you needed to come home, because as is evident my darling, those relationships you seek outside of marriage and the church, they will never last. They will never fill your soul, and never bring you home. Willa your mom is wrong to accept this as your fate, and I will never lie to you, you know it. I love my children too much to let them walk away from their destiny. I will not give into society's pressures and accept something that is a sin. 

I love you Willa, it's all I want you to know. I hate that you perhaps hate me now, because I am not in agreement with you lifestyle. I don't hate you though, and I want you to know it. I don't hate you, and even though you live a life I don't love, I do love you. I know there's a strong chance you will continue to live away from us, and to live this life. I know we may lose you, to try and change you, but I cannot change my view, and if you cannot change yours then we are at an impasse my darling daughter. I will always, always, expect you home, one day, and I will be waiting for you when you do, with open arms.

Your loving father,

X

***
He loved me, but he didn't love my lifestyle, that was about it. We were indeed at that impasse, my mom being the only one who seemed to accept my change, because she knew it made me happier to live authentically.