My Dad, Part Three: The Conversation We Never Had

Before I share what happened during this reading, I want to acknowledge something.

My father wasn’t someone who talked openly about his emotions or allowed himself to be emotionally vulnerable. Looking back, I don’t think he spent much time reflecting on his inner world while he was alive. Because of that, I honestly don’t know how he would feel about me sharing something this personal with the world.

But I’m not sharing this to expose him or tell his story for him.

I’m sharing it because this conversation answered questions I’d been carrying for decades. Whether you believe this reading came from my father, my own subconscious, or somewhere beyond what we can explain, it challenged the way I understood him. More importantly, it challenged the way I think about healing.

A few days after my dad died, I had a brief reading where he came through excited, distracted, and far more interested in reuniting with old friends and family than talking with me. It actually made me laugh because it sounded exactly like something he would have done while he was alive. Through the medium, he basically said he was busy catching up with everyone and would talk with me another time.

Seven months later, after giving grief some time to settle, I met with Asha again.

This reading was different.

Very different.

She began by describing a man with brownish hair. Without me saying a word, she described my father almost perfectly. She explained that although he didn’t look that way when he died, he was choosing to present himself as he had looked in his late twenties or early thirties.

That immediately made me smile.

My father was incredibly particular about his appearance. He was always impeccably groomed—not a hair out of place. It could take him over an hour to get ready, and no one was supposed to interrupt him. Even into the last years of his life, he still carefully styled his hair with hairspray to make sure every strand stayed exactly where he wanted it.

Then the reading shifted.

Instead of simply identifying himself, my father began describing our relationship.

What struck me wasn’t that he was explaining himself.

It was the tone.

There wasn’t a sense of making excuses. There wasn’t overwhelming shame. There was something I don’t think I had ever experienced from my father while he was alive.

Honest reflection.

He described himself as emotionally unavailable. He apologized for not meeting my emotional needs as a child.

He said I had basic needs—needs that were as essential as water is to a plant—and that he simply wasn’t capable of providing them.

As Asha relayed those words, I immediately began to cry.

“I’m crying,” I told her, “because I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear my dad say those words. I’ve waited my whole life for him to take responsibility.”

Asha gently asked, “Did you not have the opportunity to have that conversation before he died?”

I told her no.

By the end of his life, his cognitive decline had progressed to the point where those kinds of conversations simply weren’t possible anymore. I had accepted that I would never receive the acknowledgment or accountability I had always hoped for.

Then my dad immediately responded through Asha.

He said that even if he had been cognitively healthy, he still wouldn’t have been able to have that conversation with me.

Not because he didn’t love me.

Because he simply wasn’t capable of going there.

Oddly enough, hearing that didn’t create more hurt.

It brought peace.

For the first time, I wasn’t measuring my father’s love by what he was unable to give. I was finally seeing the limitations of the man himself.

As both a daughter and a therapist, I found myself looking at my father through a different lens.

I no longer believed he was incapable of love.

I believe he was incapable of emotional intimacy.

Those aren’t the same thing.

Love is a feeling. Emotional intimacy is the ability to be open, vulnerable, self-aware, and emotionally present with another person. Looking back, I don’t think my father had those capacities. He wasn’t intentionally withholding them from me. I truly don’t think he possessed them in the way I longed for as his daughter.

Surprisingly, that realization didn’t increase my sadness.

It deepened my compassion.

It also helped me separate intent from impact. The impact of his choices was very real and shaped me in countless ways. But for the first time, I could also acknowledge that the man who hurt me was carrying limitations he never seemed to understand while he was alive.

Whether this conversation came from my father, my own subconscious, or somewhere beyond both, it gave me something I had unknowingly carried for decades.

Understanding.

My father went on to describe some of the experiences that had shaped him.

He shared that he had a difficult relationship with his own mother and had carried a deep sense of disappointment in himself from an early age. As a young boy, he was given a great deal of responsibility, and by the time he reached adulthood, responsibility was the last thing he wanted.

He explained that while he wanted a family, he had never really envisioned himself as a traditional husband or father. There was even a sense that my grandparents encouraged him to settle down because they recognized he was a bit of a wild card and hoped marriage would help keep him on track.

He also spoke openly about my mother.

He took responsibility for the ways he had hurt her and acknowledged that he never truly gave her the opportunity to process their divorce or forgive him while they were both alive. He shared that one of the things he is working on now is repairing that relationship and healing what he left unresolved.

As the reading continued, he became even more reflective.

He explained that he had spent much of his life seeking attention. He recognized that he had learned to use his appearance, his charm, and even relationships to receive the validation he desperately wanted. He even described his forty-year marriage to Joyce as one that survived largely because she tolerated him.

He wasn’t proud of it.

He simply saw it clearly now.

He said he hadn’t understood any of this while he was alive because, in his words, his “wiring was off.” He wasn’t asking for sympathy or trying to justify his behavior. He was simply describing the lens through which he had lived his life.

That distinction mattered to me.

He wasn’t saying, “This is why I did it.”

He was saying, “Now I understand what I couldn’t see then.”

At one point, Asha used the biblical phrase, “Seek and you shall find.”

My father responded by explaining that he never really sought.

He never looked inward.

He never became curious about himself.

He never asked the deeper questions.

And because he never sought understanding, he never found it.

Listening to that, I couldn’t help but think how lonely that must have been.

Then came one of my favorite moments of the reading.

I reflected that maybe my dad never really “got” me because I’ve always been someone who wants to go deep. I ask questions. I process emotions. I reflect. I want to understand people.

Immediately he responded with a metaphor.

He said it would be like me inviting him on a family vacation to Arizona.

His response would have been, “No thanks, Susan. It’s too hot there.”

I laughed out loud.

It was such a perfect description.

He wasn’t saying he didn’t understand me.

He was saying he couldn’t go where I lived emotionally.

It was simply too uncomfortable for him.

Toward the end of the reading, he described me as a really good girl with a big heart—loving, compassionate, and open. He even smiled about the fact that I had been “a little wild” at times. He admitted there were choices I had made that he didn’t understand or approve of, but he made it very clear that he loved me anyway.

I couldn’t help but think he was making up for a conversation we’d had years earlier when I had been vulnerable with him and all I received in return was criticism.

One of the strangest moments of the reading happened almost in passing.

While explaining the Arizona metaphor, Asha randomly said something like, “It’d be like inviting Ron or Bruce to go on vacation…”

Those names meant nothing to her.

But they meant everything to me.

My father-in-law’s name was Ron. He had died more than twenty years earlier.

One of my closest friends, Bruce, had died just a few years after my mom.

Out of every name she could have used as an example, she unknowingly spoke the names of two men I had deeply loved and lost.

Coincidence?

Maybe. 

They are now part of my spirit team advising me on the other side?

I choose to believe so. :)

But moments like that continue to make me pause. 

I have to admit, there’s a part of me that finds this whole thing a little ironic.

My father spent much of his life craving attention—at least the positive kind—and now here I am, writing three  entire blog posts about him.

Trust me, that thought isn’t lost on me.

Part of me wants to roll my eyes and say, “Seriously? After all these years, you’re still getting the attention you always wanted.”

But maybe that’s not what’s happening at all.

Maybe this isn’t about giving my father attention.

Maybe it’s about finally giving myself understanding.

And that’s a very different thing.

A dear friend of mine once told me that she has a deeper relationship with her father now that he’s on the other side than she ever had while he was alive. He was a good father, but he was busy and emotionally distracted. She told me she continues to feel guided by him even now.

I remember thinking that was beautiful, but I didn’t really relate.

I never expected—or even wanted—to continue a relationship with my father after he died because I didn’t feel like we had much of one while he was here. When he left this world, I still carried a lot of disappointment in the choices he had made and the life he had lived.

As I’ve reflected on these experiences, I’ve realized something I hadn’t fully understood before.

When my mom died, the pain was immediate and overwhelming. Losing her left a hole in my heart that I didn’t know how to fill. More than anything, I needed comfort.

And somehow, through dreams, signs, readings, and moments that are difficult to explain, that’s exactly what I received.

By the time my dad died, I wasn’t looking for comfort.

I had already grieved the loss of the father I wished I’d had years before he actually died.

What I was searching for wasn’t comfort.

It was understanding.

My mom gave me comfort.

My dad gave me context.

Looking back, I realize those were the exact gifts I needed from each of them.

One helped heal my broken heart.

The other helped heal my understanding.

Whether these conversations came from my parents, from my own subconscious, or from somewhere beyond both, they changed me.

They reminded me that healing doesn’t always come from getting the relationship we wanted.

Sometimes it comes from finally understanding the relationship we had.

I thought about scheduling another session with Asha before writing this blog, hoping I might gain even more insight. But for now, I think I’ll let this one settle.

Some conversations deserve time.

And if my dad has more to say someday…

I trust we’ll talk again.