Mom had been dead for almost 3 years when dad got the call from his doctor confirming his cancer diagnosis. I was standing outside the room, in a house that should have been mine, watching my greatest enemy weeping over his own mortality. He looked smaller than he ever had, weak, defeated. I was not moved to tears. I never would be. I gave him a last chance to not be terrible. I took him to treatments. I tried to be there. But I finally could not do it anymore. I realized what I was doing, what I was being expected to be doing, was pretending that death redeemed what he had done to me and to my mother. If someone wanted to support him, I would not stop them. But it could no longer be put on me.
I, to this day, have never wept over the loss of him because his death was not a loss. His death was a relief. A release. A settled score. A justice. A blessing. A suck it you goddamn motherfucker I’d piss on your grave except you didn’t even get one of those because no one fucking liked you, asshole.
I am glad my dad died. It doesn’t mean I’m on the side of cancer, or want to prevent cancer research. It only means that every once and a while, bad things happen to terrible people and it’s a nice break from the usual bad things happening to not-terrible people.
There are some people who are terrible. And it is very okay to be glad they are dead so they can’t be terrible anymore. You owe no one forgiveness or redemption. Anyone saying otherwise is trying to manipulate you.
I did not hate my father because he was mentally ill, or because he was a addict, or because he had a terrible childhood raised by abusive and terrible people, or because he had a stupid mustache. I hated him because he himself was an abusive asshole. And it is very normal and good to hate abusive assholes and want them to stop being abusive assholes. Sometimes we’re better off when someone dies, especially when that someone is an abusive parent, or a celebrity fascist, or a zombie possessed by a vengeful spirit after being buried in a cursed burial ground that wants nothing but to murder and give its vengeful spirit friends more bodies to possess.
