This morning I received the following e-mails from [that man my mother had me with]:

Hi {term of endearment}! I’ts been quite a few years since you’ve been to our house so we were wondering what we’ve done that is so bad you don’t want to see us. As you get older you can look back and see lots of things that you could have done differently. We see many thing that we should have done another way, but we can only say we’re sorry for those things and move on. We love you very much and nothing can ever change that. {We} are sorry for anything that we’ve done that may have caused you any sorrow. I as a child, thought my parents hated me, but realize now that what I thought was hate was love and concern for my wellbeing and safety in the future. We ask forgiveness for those thing we did that you thought were wrong and want you to know how much we love you.

********************************************************

Hi {term of endearment}. {We} were thinking of you and we thought we would just send you a few lines.
It’s has been so long since you’ve been to the house we were wondering what we’ve said or done that has caused you not to want to have a desire to come see us.
I know we did a lot of things wrong when we were raising you. You only have one chance to raise your children. It’s after their grown and left home that we see our mistakes. Hope you can forgive us for our mistakes. We love you and always have and will. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

WoW!!!  Talk about a slap in the face to jolt you from your safe little world!! 

Apparently he got my e-mail address off of one of the headers from an e-mail my sister-in-law sent, and decided that he should just send a blanket apology to fix it all.

This is the first apology I have ever heard from him, and it did break a major barrier because it gave me the opportunity to tell him how I feel without him telling me how wrong I am for feeling that way.

Yet I can’t help but feel a tinge of the very old and familiar “It’s you, not me” in the line that says, “We ask forgiveness for those thing we did that you thought were wrong…”

I did respond to his e-mail and tell him exactly how I feel and why I have not been around.  It was nice to get it off of my chest, and although I do not feel it will change anything – I believe it will help me move forward.

Unfortunately, my e-mail did not save my response – so I cannot let you read what I said.  I will try, however, to recreate it later, if he does not reply with a copy of it.

Love & Hugs,
Kylee