In Reply to: testimony posted by anovagrrl on October 17, 2003 at 07:27:50:
What a wonderful testimony. Thank you for sharing that. It gives me so much hope for the future with my own father. I could have been reading about him in your story, except that mine was a self-made businessman. My mother has also passed away. She died of a stroke, her third. Not surprising that she had a stroke as that is a lifestyle disease that's brought about by stress, among other things (God the stress she suffered from an abusive husband!) What was surprising is that she survived two---shows how much strength she had. But she wasn't strong enough to break her co-dependency. Sad.
I've just recently come to grips with that reality. After hating my father for so long, I came to realize that my mother had an equal say in my life too. He was just the obvious culprit. He's 76 now, still physically strong and mentally sharp. Still gets very cranky and obnoxious but I only get small doses of him, so it's tolerable. And he has mellowed down a lot especially since my mom died. I’ve come to accept him for what and how he is and make the most of the time we have as a family. I’ve put away my hatred and have come to forgive him, and my mother too. And you know what? As soon as I did that, he wasn’t so bad after all.....a mystery indeed.
I thought I was being noble by joining TF to save the world. I only lately understood that I joined TF to get away from my abusive, controlling father. Only to land in a "familiar" environment. Amazing how similar our lives are. I daresay, we're not the only ones?