Father's stories

During the retreat parents write a letter to the child for whom they are grieving. Two letters follow.

A FATHER WRITES TO SAM

To my brave and beautiful boy, Sam
Letting go of you is hard, but like you, I have to be brave and let you go and fly freely in heaven.
As you were a gift here on Earth you are a gift up there in heaven.
I am sorry from the bottom of my heart that you are not here.
I am sorry I wasn't there to support you and your mother during that beautiful time of her awareness of your presence.
And I forgive your mother for not allowing me to be aware of your presence on Earth, but I thank her from the bottom of my heart for telling me of your presence in Heaven.
You are a true spirit. A free and loving child and that spirit is embodied in my heart.
And you are with God as I am.
We are both in his arms.
And I rejoice in that!
So now Sam, all I have to do to know you're resting peacefully is remember God and his acceptance of my love and then I see you there still resting in peace as always!
Goodbye my boy.
Be free.
Love always
your dad
Dougal.
Click here for Dougal's Cartoons about Sam

ROSS' LETTER TO HIS SON

Dear Mat,
I am so sorry for the pain I have caused you and the rest of the people who mean so much to me.
I miss the opportunity to kick a football around the backyard with you and will never see you take those first steps through life.
There is not a day goes by that I don’t think of you and imagine who or where you might be today.
Fly, my little man, fly……
Love,
Dad

VOYAGE AROUND MY FATHERHOOD
Human Life Review, Winter 2003 by Alan Close

This article by Alan Close appeared in The Weekend Australian, Dec. 28-29, 2002. Alan Close, an Australain author relates his experience of lost fatherhood including several terminations.

He says: "I didn't choose not to have a child-how many of us do?-it is, rather, how my life has panned out. I'm 47, which means of course that I'm not too old. But if anything I feel readier now to be a grandparent than a new father. Watching men my age with small children, I have no doubt we were meant to do this business 10 or 20 years earlier, and I wonder whether emotionally and energetically my fathering days have passed.

I have been the father of several terminations, all but one of which were clear mutual decisions-as much as any can be. That one exception, however, was my girlfriend's last-minute choice. She had been my partner for several years but our relationship was in turmoil after we had become involved with other people.

I doubt we would have stayed together even if we'd had the child-a boy, we were certain, and already named Jack. But I also have no doubt that I would have parented Jack with every gram of dormant love that lies hardening in my bones now. He would have been 13 this month. I can imagine, too easily, his gangly cockiness, the sullen, aggrieved tone in his voice and, also too easily, the frustration and fierce protectiveness this arouses in me as his father."

See full text here

MY LASTING WISH - PETER CAREY

The great Australian novelist, Peter Carey, in an article in The Australian Magazine (October 14-15, 1994) entitled “My Lasting Wish”, reflected with deep sadness on his lost children.

His grief over the babies is palpable. Peter recalls how they were lost, through abortion and subsequent miscarriages. “Lately when I think of my children I have begun to remember not just the four-year-old, who is rattling on my doorknob as I write, or the eight-year-old whom I will take to a swimming lesson this afternoon, but those other children I have spent a long time trying to forget. These are the children from my first marriage, children a long time dead.”
His story is a familiar one, remembering how things were in the early sixties in Australia. Peter describes the illegal abortionist’s premises in a suburban house in Melbourne, and how he sat, with the mother of his girlfriend (later his wife) while she was in surgery. “While we sat on a park bench, ‘H.’ lost her baby. I met her afterward in the waiting room. She was strangely unchanged and yet also changed absolutely. She was pale and shaky, lost in her own pain.”
Peter and “H.” went on to marry and discovered, years later, to their horror that the abortion had resulted in an “incompetent cervix”, which caused their next two pregnancies to result in extremely premature birth for first one child and then twins – all of whom died soon after birth.
The story ends with Peter calling to mind how he was unable to give names to the children he lost – a way of holding the grief at bay -- allowing the ashes of his babies to be placed in a wall, unmarked: “I wish only that we had honoured those children with a plaque, a name. I will always wish that, forever.”

HOW ABORTION HURTS MEN AND HOW THEY CAN BE HEALED

What is Post-Abortion Syndrome?
Post-Abortion Syndrome is a stress disorder commonly experienced by men who have fathered children who were aborted. Through the process of denial, some men block the natural process of grieving and dealing with the death of their children. They deny their responsibility for the abortion, and in so doing block the natural grieving process that must take place before healing can occur.

Who are these hurting men?
Abortion not only affects the father of the baby, but the grandfather, the siblings, and other relatives. Men who marry women who have had abortions are also affected by their wife's pain, even if they did not father the aborted child.

Why do men need healing?
It is always healthy for men who have been affected by an abortion to grieve the loss of their child and to find closure and healing from the wounds; wounds that are frequently unidentified as related to the abortion.

Why abortion hurts men.
Abortion denies a man's instinct for commitment, protection, and provision.
The guilt and fear from an abortion can erode a man's ability to trust.
Abortion may result in anger, anxiety, and errors in judgment. This can cause failures in present and future relationships with women, children, and others, and may diminish one's capacity as a father, a husband, and a man.
Abortion may cause men to fear that God will not accept or forgive them.

One Man's Story
It was June of 1981 and I was preparing to graduate from high school. I was like any other senior; full of expectations and looking forward to a great summer. Then my girlfriend told me she was pregnant. We both agreed that an abortion would be the best course to take because I felt we had other things to worry about, and believed we were too young to be parents.
After the abortion I felt a sense of relief, but that relief soon turned to feelings of disappointment and loss; and finally to a feeling of deep anger towards myself, my girlfriend, and everyone involved in the decision.
I have found forgiveness, healing, and an inner peace that comes from knowing God still loves me. I can finally stop beating myself.

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