To my loving and caring "Father",

I know it's been killing you that neither Sascha, Hillarie, nor I have contacted you in any way in the past 10 years since you ran off to Florida again. I must apologize that for a good few years there, the letters we have sent you kept getting returned to us, because we never had an address written on the envelope to send them to you. Apparently, the mailman didn't know where you lived either. We also tried calling you many times, but the operator was really mean and said we needed more than just a name and state to get a hold of you, and that unlisted numbers couldn't be found anyway. I apologize about them.

Once we were finally able to hunt you down and find your address, we again tried many times to mail you. I'm telling you, SOMEONE has GOT to fire that mailman, cause apparently the same guy that loses all of the letters, pictures, and cards that you're always sending us is losing all of ours that we've tried to send to you. Such a shame, really.

No, I'm sorry, I lied right there. We actually haven't sent you anything since you exiled yourself in Florida. This actually leads me to another apology. I'm sorry that I never realized the roles that we are playing in this game. Nobody ever told me that it was my sisters and I that were supposed to play the adults and that the person that I always thought was supposed to play the role of the father was actually playing the little immature child that always wants but never gives. Again, I'm sorry about the mix-up.

Alright, enough of the sarcasm. You wanted your letter?? Here's your letter.

It's been an awful long time since we have seen or heard from you. About 10 years or so, give or take a few. Every once in a blue moon or so (and by that I mean about once every 3 years) I'll notice a nice new one-sentence signature in my internet guestbook from you and your side of the family. Yup, way to keep in touch with three of your children!

Every time I receive one of these messages, you and your family always make sure to include a little stab at us, questioning why in the world we never write you. Well, golly, maybe it seems that our father doesn't want anything to do with us?? What does he care? If YOUR father ran off to a distant state, never called, never wrote, and went to extra lengths to make sure his address and telephone numbers were unlisted so that we couldn't find him...what message would that give you? Certainly not one of a father who's so desperately trying to keep in contact with his children.

But no, it's OUR fault that there's no contact between us. WE'RE supposed to contact YOU. Get real. Contrary to what it may appear, you ARE our biological father. How dare you avoid and dodge us for basically our entire lives, and then expect US to be the ones to contact YOU??

Your mom likes to point out that we now have your address, so there's no reason why we can't mail you. She's right, we DO finally have your address. With no help from any of you, I may add. But you sure as hell aren't going to get any letters, pictures, or anything from us as long as you play this little pity game with us. What's keeping YOU from writing US, hmm? It's not as if we don't have the same address and phone number that we've had for the past 20 years or anything. We're not unlisted. What excuse do YOU have? As the father of your children, YOU have the resposibility to keep contact with your children, NOT the other way around.

I wonder, every night, when you say you think about me and my sisters, how do you picture us? Are we still the little elementary-schoolers that we were when you last visited us? Or do you have a mental guess of what we are like now, 10 years later? What do you know about our lives? And I'm not talking about anything very detailed. I'm meaning, where do you think we work. What are our best friend's names? Do you suppose any of us have any children yet, and if so, how many? What colleges have we or are we attending? What field are we going into? What kind of cars do we drive? What musical instruments do we play? And just for fun: what are our birthdays, and how old are we now?

Anyone who knows us at all can answer most, if not all of those...can you?

Words cannot describe how much I'm sickened by you, your parents, and all your little manipulative little attempts to remove all blame from you, and stick it on us. You want pity from me? You want me to write to you, whining about how much I miss you? You want me to be all excited about being able to fill you in on the last 10 years (that's half, if you're counting) of my life?? Well that's my final apology, cause that ain't gonna happen. You're about 8 years too late, "dad".

Finally, I want you to stop making any cracks at my mom whenever you get the chance. Y'see, this poor woman never had the chance to bail on us when we were kids. No. Scratch that. She may have had the chance, I don't know, but I DO know that she never did, never wanted to, and never even THOUGHT about it. She has this weird sense of "responsibility" that drives her to actually take care of us, raise us, and be there for us whenever we need her. Yeah, I know, crazy huh? Apparently she believes that as a parent, it's her duty. She also has this weird thing called "love" for us. And I'm not talking about the kind of love that someone SAYS they have, but never does anything to show it. I mean, she actually loves us, and proves it to us every single day of our lives. She's here when it's easy. She's here when it's the most difficult thing of her life. She's here when it's relaxed. She's here when it's so frusterating you want to pull your hair out. She's here, period. No running. No hiding. She's here for us. And I know my sisters and I love her more than she could ever know because of that. Your love? Eh, I guess I just have to take your word for it, however much your "word" is worth...

So, in an effort to not waste any more time on this long-awaited letter than necessary, I'm gonna wrap things up with a summary.

YOU are OUR father. YOU feel so bad about not hearing from us in 10 freaking years, YOU write US. Don't bother calling, cause I might be too busy clipping my nails or something to talk to you. A letter I can read when I have the time. Stop your attempts of making US feel like the bad guys for not contacting you, when you've done everyting in your power to avoid us. And finally, STOP making any comments, WHATSOEVER, about my mother and her involvement in our "relationship". If you REALLY want SO BADLY to contact us, she should have nothing to do with it anyway. She deserves nothing but all of our love and respect for what she's done for us, and heck, there should be no other person in the world you respect more than her. After all, she was the one out of the two of you that raised your children.

By the way, I was just tickled at how funny that was that you signed my guestbook as "Darth Vader". "I am your father" haha I get it! Good one! ......I hate Star Wars. But then again, how could you have possibly known that?

You biological son,
Ian