Dear, Knickky
Let me start off by saying I love you. I loved you the best way that I knew how at the time. No matter what was going on it was never an excuse for the way I treated you. If no one else was there for you I should’ve been, but I walked away from you just like everyone else. For that I’m so sorry. The old me is dead and I hope that this new me can prove to you that we are better and we want better. Before we can completely move on there’s a few things I need to apologize for and you need to hear this.
I just want you to know that you were loved. Your mother and father did love you. They were just battling addictions and couldn’t give you what you needed at that time in your life. They couldn’t take care of you the way that was needed. It’s not that the drugs and alcohol were more important than you. It’s just it was around before you were even old enough to know something was wrong. They became hooked and there was no way to shake it. So please let that go. Stop looking for answers to why you weren’t enough because it wasn’t you. You have always been enough. Even in the midst of it all you could still see how much your mom loved you. She showed up at important events. She always found you on Mother’s Day. She always made her love known in some small ways when you needed it. As for your father, you guys now have a better relationship then you could have ever imagined. So just concentrate on that. Better late than never.
Your grandmother loved you the best way she knew how. It may have not been a hands on full of affection kind of love, but she did love you. She wanted you to be the best possible. So she pushed you. She made you strong. She made you determined. She made it so that you would be able to stand tall and hold your own in any room with any crowd. It may have not been what you wanted but she gave you what you needed to navigate this world alone. She was preparing you for a time such as now. If she wasn’t so tough on you, a lot of what you went through would’ve broken you. You would’ve been defeated. She wasn’t using church to punish you. She knew that in order to make it in this world you needed to be prayed up. She knew the more she kept you in church the less time you would have to run the streets and get yourself into trouble. She was trying to protect you the best way possible. When you asked for advice and she gave you scripture she was really just sharing with you what she knew would work. She knew that God was a healer. She knew that He was the only friend you would ever need. She knew that when everyone else walked away or turned their back on you that God would always be there for you.
I want you to know that the rape wasn’t your fault. No matter what you were wearing. Doesn’t matter if you snuck out the house or not. It wasn’t your fault. No one has the right to take anything from you. If you didn’t lay down with him willingly he had no right to force himself on you. I wish I would’ve let you speak up and tell someone what was going on with us. Instead I told you to keep it to yourself and let it go because we were wrong. We should’ve never been there. Wrong place wrong time I used to say. I never let you cry about it. I sat back and watched as you started to change. I watched as you started to act out recklessly. I said nothing. I sat back and I just watched. I knew it wasn’t right and I knew you didn’t want to, but I also knew you were doing it to numb the pain you were feeling. You were walking around thinking if people can just take something so precious from you whenever they wanted why not just give it away. I never stepped in to help. Truth is I didn’t know how or what to say to you. What do you say to someone after watching something so precious being taken from them? How would you ever be the same?
Please believe that I am sorry, sorry for all the times I let you down. Sorry for all the moments I should’ve walked away but, instead I stayed in all those unhealthy relationships. I’m sorry for all of the moments I allowed people to make us feel like we weren’t enough, because we’ve always been more than enough. Sorry for never giving you the chance to properly grieve. I sat back and I watched you suffer in silence. While I was too worried about what everyone around us must be thinking about us. Sorry for allowing you to keep getting caught up in fake relationships. I allowed you to give your heart to people that never deserved it. I allowed you to pour into people and give all that you had while receiving nothing in return. I allowed people to come into our life that only wanted what you had to offer. I’m sorry for forcing relationships on you. If they were not checking for you when you were down, why should we allow them in our space now? Sorry for pushing you to go and do it when I should’ve just let you be still. Sorry for making you do what other people wanted you to do and act the way they felt you should. When all you ever wanted was to be true to who you are and what you felt. Sorry for making you so standoffish and closed off. I’m sorry you don’t know how to love or how to accept love from others. I’m sorry I never taught you how to deal with pain. So now all the relationships in your life are failing.
I promise in 2020 I will treat you better. I will put your needs before anyone else. I will stay on top of your mental health. I will no longer pretend that there isn’t a problem. I will take better care of you. I won’t allow anyone to keep walking in and out of your life. I will be there to hold your hand and stand by you. I will embrace all of you, not just the good parts. I love you and I promise I will tell you and show you that more often. If something isn’t right for us I will let it go. I wont try to make things fit into our lives that doesn’t need to be there. NO longer will we have to hide who we are from people. If they cant love an except us as is, then they don’t need to be in our lives. I will continue trying to heal us one word at a time.
Love always,
Nicole
A Moment in my TRUTH 