When I went no contact with my father alongside my sibling a little over a year ago. I never realzied how liberating it would be. However with the passage of Mothers Day and the approach of Father's Day, I feel such a profound sadness, I almost want to say grief. In my anger last year I didn't have room in my heart to feel the grief I feel now.

I am almost 28 years old and my sibling is 20. My parents have been divorced for almost 4 years. The divorce was caused by years of issues but was started by an almost violent incident and his refusal to apologize and his defense of himself that was basically "if I wanted to hurt you, I would have.". That night my mom, sibling, and I left our house for almost two weeks because she was concerned for her safety and given her leaving my sibling and I were honestly concerned for our own as we couldn't imagine how angry he would be.

My father and I never had the best relationship until I got older. So the first 18ish years were pretty difficult for he and I. But my grandfather wasn't the best father and from everything I heard about my grandfather (ironically my father went no contact with my grandfather when I was around 10), my father was really trying his best to be the dad he didn't have, at least that's what I wanted to see.

The time after the divorce was really difficult because we were no longer immersed in his behavior and he didn't have a lot of his ability to control situations before. So my sibling and I really started to notice his narcissistic behaviors around this time. But he always had a knack for never pushing us too far and being able to lull us back into a feeling of complaceny.

However when the Pandemic started he lost all control over us because my job never stopped and neither did my mom's. We both work service jobs and so were coming into contact with lots of people. So my father having a couple of medical conditions that make him an at risk group I didn't want to spend too much time around him for fear of getting him sick. Like even at that time I was still mad at him for a lot of things but I didn't want him hurt, sick, or dying.

About March of last year my mother falls severely ill with covid like symptoms and my sibling is having massive struggles with preexisting mental health issues and has, to withdraw from school. So I with my own medical problems spend 6 weeks am the sole caretaker of my mother and sibling because neither can barely function. Functioning at some of the highest levels of anxiety I have ever experienced in my life because I am constantly worrying am I going to need to contact the hospital about either of my family members.

Through that time my father is surprisingly helpful for not getting what he wants, which is to see my sibling and I. He does things like ask if we need any groceries and drop them off, picks up meds, he even had Easter dinner catered for us, so I wouldn't have to worry about cooking anything and even distancing from my Mom try to have some semblance of an Easter.

All of that was a facade though. Not even a week after my mom is "recovered". He turns around and tells her that she needs to move my sibling to her phone plan because he can't afford to pay it anymore. However the real blow would come a couple of weeks later.

Part of the divorce agreement was we got to keep the house until my sibling is 20 as long as my sibling is planning to receive some kind of advanced education. So he sent us an order to vacate the house and put it up on the market because my sibling medically withdrew from their bachelor's program, even though they had made plans to go into a trade program once it reopened. It was at that moment we couldn't recognize him anymore and cut contact.

My entire life he has always supported people going into trades instead of college. However my sibling doing that didn't support his purposes so he tried to use that as leverage to kick us out of our house during a global pandemic.

Until recently though I never realzied how sad that day was and how sad these events were. In my lifetime I will experience the death of my paternal parent twice. Last year when he made those decisions and revealed his true colors that screwing over his ex wife was more important to him than his children's safety and well-being, my dad died and I was just left with my father. The second death being hopefully a very very long time from now.

But that distinction between father and dad however is very important to me. Dad is a merit based title and Father is one given to you just becuase you have a kid. So that's why in a sense I feel like I am grieving the death of my Dad. Because I don't recognize him anymore, I can't trust him anymore. I don't know where my dad is, becuase this guy that looks like him certainly isn't acting like him.

What also makes me sad in a way is how much better my life has been since we went NC. However that brings me comfort at the same time. There is no more waiting for the other shoe to drop or walking on egg shells. I am closer to my mom than I have been in years, my sibling and I have doubled down on our bond. And it's because we aren't exhausted anymore from all the ways he would push us around and abuse us. We have the energy to genuinely want to help eachother with what's bothering us. I've gotten my anxiety about 70% under control and have been able to calibrate myself not constantly be living in the red zone of anxiety. I rebuilt enough confidence in myself to get my dream pet(a ball python) and have been having the time of my life with her, even incorporating aspects of her care into my treatment for my anxiety. I have since let go of my anger towards him and now I just pity him.

I don't know if I will ever have the room in my heart to bring him back in because as we have sorted out buying the house from him and handled medical issues related to my sibling he has continued to act absolutely monstrous and there are things I'm not sure i can forgive him for. Not out of anger but because they breach whatever sense of trust is left in the wake of all his other betrayals. I just hope one day he becomes self aware of how his behavior has caused all of this, so he can improve his life.