I quit the hating part of my love-hate relationship with my dad for the things he did when I became a parent. We all make mistakes. Some worse than others. Parents are people too.

I harboured recentments for some 30 years before a young girl came to me for advice about her problems with her dad. She turned my advice back onto me and challenged me to reach out to my dad. I took the challenge.

I was face to face with this man who had bullied me and abandoned me et al but he was not that man anymore. He was old and frail and it was he who wanted to talk through past issues. I thought I did too because so much had spun around in my head for so many years. So many things I had wanted to say to him. Here was my chance but suddenly nothing from the past mattered anymore. I let him talk because it was important to him. I heard his pain, his sorrow and regrets. My heart broke for him. He became human and I didn't need to say a word to experience the healing along side of him.