Revised on 9-11-2026 at 6:11pm
Most of us tend to share only exaggerated good times, after the death of a loved one. For a short time, this may help us to some degree. But then reality must be faced, because its not healthy to avoid it. I think it's important to be more honest and I am taking it to an extreme in this post.
I just again looked back at my father's 2024 obituary and feel a need to set the record straight on a few important things...
One real truth about my father is that he was a mild form of a pedophile; he had encouraged at least one of his toddler aged children to touch him. And then he later strived to prevent anyone from ever knowing about it - he started brutally mentally abusing one of his adult children (me), out of fear of his shameful act possibly being remembered and exposed, even though I had not even known about it at that time; he had strived to keep me isolated from the whole family, and had wanted people to think I was "insane," since I first started looking back at and healing from the tough times in my childhood, in the late 1980s. My looking back at the past was a huge threat to him. He had even kept me away from the whole family for about a decade. And I didn't even suspect or realize why until 2004. Ironically, his own aims to cover up his shameful act is what later exposed it; I realized it because of his mental abuse, and then was forced to speak up about it, because of his ongoing mental abuse.
2004 was a VERY tough year for me. Words cannot express how painful it had been to face the fact that my own father cared about me so little, that he was trying to destroy my sanity, and had severely damaged my relationships with my siblings, in order to cover his own mistake. It still hurts. I forgave him, but his total lack of love for me still hurts. I think it always will. I now sometimes feel more sad for him than I do for myself, because he was his own worse enemy in this whole situation and he must have been miserable - so filled with shame and guilt that was never resolved. If only he had chosen a better path - a way to deal with his initial mistake that would have been good for him and everyone else. The dark path he chose put me in a position where I had to either stand up and tell the truth or accept the "insane" label and possibly even be shoved into an insane asylum. In 2006 I chose to save my sanity and tell the truth. I matter too. Then I washed it all away and forgave him..., but then my two older sisters (and father?) dredged the ugly mess back up through slamming me with another round of severe mental abuse at the worse possible time - directly after our father's death in 2024....again forcing me to tell the truth or accept the false label and check myself into an asylum. BUT I will only accept the REAL TRUTH and its time to more fully expose it, for everyone's sake; My father had launched into rounds of mental abuse, in order to hide his shameful act, since I started looking back at my childhood in the 1980s. And my sisters, who had always been hatefully jealous of me, had cruelly fueled his drive against me. Yet, both of my sisters knew the real truth - they were aware of his inappropriate behaviors, long before I was.
I share this publicly, for all the people whom it could help to validate or save from such horrific levels of mental abuse...etc.
My father was also not some of the things that my sisters claimed he was in the obituary. He did not "raise" his six children alone after our mother died - he severely neglected and abandoned the two who were not already grown up by then - my two little brothers. He had even kicked one of them out of the house when he was only around 15 years old and was in desperate need of the understanding and love that my father was not capable of. I was 18 and my other three siblings were older than that when our mother died; we'd already been raised and were mostly not even living at his home. And I was actually mostly raised by two sets of surrogate parents, through all of my teen years, because of my own father and mother rarely being there for me. (they were my saving grace.) My father actually seemed to never really want any of the children whom he often avoided when we were young, and then latter rarely even initiated contact with, except for when he wanted something.
My father was actually not a "creative" type of person at all; most of his conversations and writings came from other people's experiences and writings. (He actually used to repeat my wisdom as if it were his own!) The real truth is that he was a man who had never really found himself, never fully lived life, and never faced or did anything to address or help heal or resolve any of the most important family issues that had needed his attention. He actually sometimes mischievously fueled or instigated problems instead of being the adult. (He was not really the "patriarch"/leader of our family; my abusive oldest sister actually controlled almost everything, including him, which is why I left home when I was 15 years old.) My father was actually like a child who just stumbled through the family, and life, avoiding all the depths. He was a man who was so filled with shame that he had a hard time facing people; he had mostly isolated himself from society through his whole adult life. He actually had no close friends, except for his brother Jr.
And my father did not really die in a "loving" home; he actually died after being taken from his own home and kept isolated, against his will, in an emotionally abusive environment, where he (no doubt) gave up on his own life very quickly. My older sisters wanted most of his money for themselves, and they manipulated many things and even abused and separated their own siblings and father, in order to make sure they got it. I have felt deeply sad for my father, because, with them at the helm, he was not only deeply hurt in his final years, but also had no chance to have a healthy closure with his two remaining sons and I, while he was on his death bed. And this was not good for anyone, especially not for him. Although I tried in every way I could, I was not able to save my father - to return him to his own home, where he wanted to be, and get him the proper kinds of help. :-(
My father's life and death was not at all like what has been portrayed publicly. Much of it was sad as hell. This is the real truth.
The problem of adults being sexually inappropriate with children must have more exposure, so that people are less inclined to do it; instilling a fear of exposure, in those who can't care about the children, can save the children from these types of experiences. And the horrid crime of calling the victims "insane" or "crazy" or "mentally ill," in order to hide the shameful act, must also have more exposure, so that it can be recognized for what it is and stopped.
P.S. My father's inappropriate sexual behavior was so mild that it had no affect on me. It was not forceful or abusive. I was so little that it would have been no different from holding his hand. And it appears to have been just one incident when I was around one year old. BUT, the mental abuse and slanders that he launched into, in order to cover it up, and the hateful roles my sisters played in the whole situation, were horrifically hurtful to me. Aside from the abuses and fabrications, I lost my whole family in a way that is far worse than if they had all been killed in a plane crash. And for a while, I had lost trust in myself. It was devastating. I do not know if I will ever fully recover from it all. And its not even over! Even though my father is gone, other members of my family still hold that axe over my head; they still say that I am "crazy" or "insane" and that I "belong in an asylum." I know that they say it out of hatful aims to scare or hurt me. But will they act on it and try to have me imprisoned? I don't know. I know they can't, without fabricating things, but they have proven to be more than capable of that. I still do not feel safe. :-(