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An open letter from a runaway child

Someone wrote how today things are different then thirty, twenty or even ten years ago. Today there are many fine teachers who are gold. it's true. But "It starts at Home, stupid" is the worst mistake we New Agers have come to believe. I hated my parents bitterly for the years of torture I grew up with, and till today in my thirties haven't yet got myself all together. At about shidduch age I decided it is about time, I picked my self up and left. For two years I was seething with hate, I haven't spoken to my parents. I swore in anger not to attend even their funerals. My drive to erase the past was successful. But along with that past went not only my father and mother but my siblings, my grandparents and my 5 year old brother. In the end, today, I look back at the few years I have missed. Then I got a call that my grandfather passed away. Then I checked my voicemail which I haven't checked in ages. It was my grandmother; she was begging me to come say goodbye to Zeidy in his last breaths. I couldn't believe it. Not that my zaidy died but what I'd done. All of the endless days at the hospital, they waited and waited. They were begging me to return, just to see them, just to say goodbye. And I dident come. In my anger I found a new identity and did not know them. He died knowing that His First Grandson dident want to see him. It is now too late. The guilt tears me apart. Then my father. The image of the monster I grew up with is now gone. When I see my father I see an older man, who had a bitter life. I see a tremendous pain in him, ever since I left him. It took some time for me to catch on to it, maybe two years, to realize the suffering that I had caused in him. There is no pain in the world like the pain of loosing a child. He loosed his son. His Shobbos table Empty. His life was empty. then the seder table, spring, summer, winter, and a nother year, he waited. His son is gone. A friend of mine gave him a picture of me. I was told that my father cried when he saw it, and couldn't depart from the photo "It's my son... it's my son... I wonder how he is, I wonder where he lives, I whish I could see him..." It then hit me. Today I talk to my father. I love him deeply. I long for him. But no matter how much I try to show it to him, to spend time with him, just to walk to shul on shabbos with him... there is still a wall that remains. He is afraid of me. As much as he yeans for his son the pain is too much for him to bear, and would rather spend time with his family, the family he has, not the family of a painful past. I'd do anything to repair the damage. There is nothing in the world that I hope and dream for. And looking back at the horrible abuse of a small child, you can quote me that it is nothing compared with, and nothing compares with the suffering of a father who looses his child. I'd go back to the dreaded childhood ten times just to ease the suffering, for just one moment, of a broken father.

As a teacher, I don't care, you can curse out the Rishaim rabeiim we had as a children. But as a child, and not yet a parent, I beg you all to think twice before chas visholom saying anything against a parent. Trust me, I went through it all, I know the torture. When others would tell me that I should take responsobility for myself and stop blaming, I'd curse them out and say that they have no idea what abuse is, and if you weren't abused then don't talk. Well, it took a heavy two years of my life to come to the realization that the Torah knew better when it listed a Kabed Es Avicha and omitted "The Eleventh Commandment" (Respect your children). Don't learn the hard way as I did. Bite your lip; hold it in, for years if necessary. But never, ever make the mistake and say something bad to a parent. This is what I have learned in my life, and it is what I have to teach to others. No matter what they did to you, at the end of the day it is they who need you. Before you know it they will be bedridden in an old age home, and you are the only thing they have in the whole world. You have the responsibility to be there for them. You must. No matter how much it hurts.

Response to letter;

I think this guy would benefit from seeing a good therapist, he definitely has some misplaced guilt over saving himself from his abusive parents. Maybe he needs to think if this guilt that he is feeling is further being perpetuated by his parents, who at this stage of the game have no other method of recourse to his alleged abandonment of them. Either way, it is quite common for such guilt to occur in such situations, because he is obviously the only one with an intact conscience here. However, he needs to understand what he is going through and realize that he did not bring this upon himself, only then will he be able to deal with what has happened in his life. I'm sure he would not suggest staying with parents and honoring them if they molest their kids daily. So why would physical abuse be any different? Kibud Av V'aim means honoring one's parents, i.e. not contradicting them in public. Being a punching bag is most definitely not included in this Biblical Commandment.