I was 12 when I last saw my father. He had initially intended to work in Canada and came back because of home sickness. He left again, but this time, he never came back-not to our family at least. I carried a certain hope that he would return and we would again be the perfect family that we once were. That hope eventually faded and I finally accepted that he had another life while my mother and I had our own.

For years I have been broken, angry and sad. I deeply resented and blamed him for many of the wrong things that happened in my life. There was an emptiness that he left that I tried desperately to fill. I liked to be with friends and in crowded places most of the time to drown out the loneliness and sadness. I tried not to be envious of other friends’ relationships with their fathers, but I failed. Secretly, I longed to have that. My parents didn’t have to be together. All I wanted was to be close to my father.

We kept in touch though. Most of the time, we would only have awkward conversations over the phone and when I was younger, he did write to me a couple of times. I called him to ask him for money to pay for my tuition, thesis expenses and for short vacations. My father was a bit of a miser and he noted all his expenses. Years would pass before our next string of small talk. If there’s one thing though that remained the same, it was that he kept his bible close and still preached to me a few times.

For years I have tried to make sense of why he left, but I was never able to. And for years I had planned to get in touch and boast to him what I have made of myself. I was still angry, but I have always had a soft spot that made me cry at the very thought of him. I have always put that plan aside because I didn’t know where to start or how to go about an estranged relationship. It was always easier to preoccupy myself with other things. I think a lot of people go through this. It’s always difficult to start over or to mend things that have been broken.

I got in touch with my father last Monday evening. I cried when I heard him speak, but I tried my best not to let him hear the emotion from my voice. It had been a little over 4 years since we last spoke. But it wasn’t tears of sadness or longing. I was happy. I was eager to know what he was up to and to find out anything about his life. I wanted to have the connection that we lost over the years. All of a sudden, all the things he has done that hurt me didn’t matter anymore. They were all in the past and those were the things that weren’t worth remembering. What mattered was the wonderful memories we shared as father and daughter, his relationship with my mother and what we had as a family.

It’s very difficult to come to terms with a situation like this and it’s difficult to forgive, but I know that if I maintained the anger, sorrow and pain, I would’ve nurtured a burden that could last a lifetime. There’s a time for everything-for pain, anger, grieving, forgiveness and letting go. You have to let go of one emotion to experience another and you have to know when to put things in the past and when to live in the present. Time is something not to be taken for granted because it cannot be taken back.

I love my father and at times before, I imagined and thought of how I could show my love for him. And I realized now that one of the greatest acts of love is forgiveness. I ask for no apologies or tears from him. I only want us to be father and daughter.