A letter addressed to my “Father”

Dear Dad or should I call you my biological father,

Well, whatever I am supposed to be calling you, hello. The last time I tried to write to you was when I was 9, but my mother chose to keep the handwritten letter for herself. Thank you for bringing the gift of my life into the world, but realize that it comes with stipulations. All I have ever wanted was love, Dad. I’ve only wanted one thing in this life that I have been missing: paternal love. The bond between a father and his daughter that shows her the way a man should treat her; It shows her how a man should love her. The type of love that pushes her on the swings. The type of love that picks her 50lb body up after she falls and says to her, “I love you”. I’m jealous of that paternal type of love that the girls share with their fathers at the numerous Daddy Daughter events, which I sparingly attended with my grandfather as my date. As thankful as I am for my grandfather, that relationship will never compare to the one that is shared between a father and his daughter. All I ever wanted is to be loved by you. The reality is that you were some college aged student who needed money, so you chose to donate. I just want you to know that your selfish actions indeed have consequences. My mother tells me that I’m better off without a father than with a father who doesn’t love me. The issue with that statement is that in the latter situation, at least I would know who my father is, regardless of his love for me. In the first statement, I do not know if my father loves me or not, which causes this tornado of thoughts in my mind, but even worse: I feel like I an entire half of my life is missing thanks to my mother’s decision. As much as mother depicts herself as the hero, she may be a villain in disguise. Perhaps, she does not even understand the impact of her selfish deeds. Did she ever think about how this could impact a child? How it keeps her daughter up at night, knowing that there is yet another man in this world who does not love her. So here I am, broken, confused about love. Hopping from one guy to the next in hopes of being loved from some man, even if the man has no good intentions. At least he would be able to give me the illusion of something that my biological father was never able to give me: love. I’m just scared that you are out there with a perfect, happy family, one that I have always dreamed of and envied, and do not want anything to do with me. As much as I know that you were in it for the money, I had always had this irrational hope that maybe, just maybe you loved me back. I wonder if I have ever crossed your mind. Dad,if you somehow manage to come across this letter directed towards you, I want you to know that I can’t stop thinking about you, and through it all, I love you. It might sound crazy to tell someone who seems like a complete stranger that you love them, but I’m not really sure.

Love,
Your donor conceived child