May The Circle Be Unbroken

 Hey, buddy.

You remember how you don’t have a grandpa on my side of the family? That’s cuz whatever his name would have been to you, he hurt me the most that a father can hurt another person without killing them. Sometimes I wonder if maybe it was even more than that. That means he’s not a safe person to have in my life, or in yours. 

You remember how you don’t really have a grandma on my side of the family? That’s because she knew, or, at the very least, chose not to. That means she’s not a safe person to have in my life, or yours.

My dude, there’s a lot of other reasons in all of this that are why you don’t know those people, and won’t until you’re old enough to make that decision yourself - but those are the big ones.

Buddy, I need you to take this part in for real. This is not just a thing that I say, that I don’t believe with my full chest. There are people that could have made surviving a lot easier if I just decided to ignore that they weren’t safe. There are people that could have made me feel less alone if I had just decided to ignore that they weren’t safe. I decided a long time ago it’s more important to me that you and your siblings are safe than that I am comfortable. 

I will never stop deciding that people who harm those they should have protected are allowed to be in our circle. I don’t care who they are to me. When someone chooses to inflict that kind of harm - the kind that can’t be fixed with an apology and a change in direction - that person has to leave the circle. Anything less is a continuation of the harm they started.

Buddy, someday you may find yourself in a circle and maybe you learn everyone in it is fine with the harm. I’m gonna need you to leave it. I’m gonna need you to take anyone else who isn’t safe there with you. I’m gonna need you to remember how loud I taught you that you’re allowed to be. 

Buddy, I need you to know that I am not a rug-sweeper-under. Loving you does not look like letting you inflict harm. You came from me, and you do not get to harm without consequence. You are on the second rung of a ladder of learners. You are not a link on a chain of harmers.

I do hope that I am the loudest voice in your head here. I hope mine is the one that drowns out our ancestors, those of yours I don’t share, and most of all this terrible system that keeps caring so much more about the bright futures of men who harm than the blighted ones of those harmed.

Buddy, hear me when I say, I do not care who the harmer is to me. 

I will always side with the harmed.

Please keep being in our circle.