A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-Seven-Hundred-And-Seventy-Five

It has been a very difficult day.  Melissa received word that her father (who she has been estranged from since well before we met) passed away.  She received a text message from a half-brother who I don't think she ever met asking her to get in touch and immediately told me she thought it was probably bad news.  Until recently we had not even been certain he was still alive, to be honest, but a year or so ago we had lunch with another of Melissa's relatives who was visiting the area, and he mentioned that George, Melissa's father, had a ranch or something in the country.  I know that Melissa had chosen not to have a relationship with him, that he had tried to reach out to apologize for things at some point, but she was not receptive to it.  He was, I gather, a horrible and abusive man, both to her and to her mother.  At one time when we were visiting her at the nursing home, Melissa's mother became extremely agitated and afraid, telling us that George was coming to the nursing home and was going to hurt her.  They broke up when Melissa was still a very little girl but Ann was still terrified.  I know that Melissa does not miss him, is not saddened by some sort of current loss, but I also know there is still a pain, a grieving of another sort.  I wish that I could do something to make it better or easier.  Of course, I felt the same when her mother passed, though Melissa's emotions at that time had quite different motivations.

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