Growing up I had looked up to someone that I had thought was the idea of a father. I thought I had it all because you taught me how to do all the things a little girl had hoped she would get to experience with her father. Teaching me how to throw the perfect spiral, because you were a football coach after all, telling me where I was messing up when I would go to pitch a softball and then helping me fix the problem with many nights at the field. You kept me in line when things were getting difficult in my life, you told me to see the good in people and to trust everyone and now I am too trusting of people. You were everything that a little girl had wanted because you were my dad, my role model, my family.

But thank you, for walking out my mom when things got hard. Thank you for walking away from me because I wasn’t considered yours, because I wasn’t your blood, I was the enemy. Thank you for teaching me things that I now use in my everyday life, but better. Thank you for everything because honestly it made me a better person. A better me. And because of you I am doing just fine. You may have left and took a piece of my heart with you, but I am just fine about it. They say that children who don’t have a father figure in their life are more likely to not succeed. But I am the outlier. I am the girl who will not let a bump in the road keep her from achieving what she wants to achieve in life. I work harder just because I know that everything I do will get back to you and people will tell you just how great I am doing now because I have people who love me for who I am. Things are hard sometimes, but then I think about how far I’ve come without any help from you.

Thank you for the love you once gave me. Thank you for the things you have taught me in my life, because I have learned from everything I have seen around me. I might have been abandoned by you, but I have a full force behind me rooting me on to my successful life. I will achieve greatness without you. But I will also achieve greatness because of you.

Love,

The daughter you once knew