Me and my Dad

In January 2023, my father passed away after a long battle with cancer.

In October, three months earlier, he came out of remission and I realized that this time he may not come out of it.

As it was the fact that he was still alive was a kind of medical miracle.

In December, a month before he passed away, driven by great distress and great difficulty with myself, I asked for help from the Constellation group I belong to at the Constellations Path, which my teacher Yishai founded. Yishai facilitated the Constellation.

This post was written then.

*****

We’re doing a Constellation and my subject is “Me and my father.”

These days I’m doing everything I can to come to terms inside with my father.

Liron represents my father and is incredibly accurate.

The session progresses, many things happen, and I can see a lot.

Liron has to leave after about an hour. Shira takes her place on my father’s representation and looks at Gali,  who represents me – or rather, represents Yael the child.

My father’s representative stands and looks at my representative and says to Yishai, “She’s a good girl, but I’m not fit to be a father. I’m interested in taking care of myself.”

And I think to myself, Damn it! We went through an entire session just to now hear the words that my father actually said to my sister six months ago? How depressing.

And with this thought comes the realization that my father has nothing to give me, and that I need to let go of my yearning for my father to see me.

After all, he never did have that ability, and there’s no reason for him to have it now just before he dies.

These thoughts aren’t angry. These are thoughts of acceptance and of making peace with the situation.

We all have our parents on several levels:

Our physical parent – flesh and blood;

The soul of our parent;

The figure of our parent, which lies within us;

And the parent archetype, to which we aspire.

The biggest change we can make in our lives is with the parent figure inherent in us.

And sometimes, this change involves giving up or letting go of our dream that they’ll see and accept us.

At a certain point, Yishai adds a resource to my father’s representer, and with this resource, my father can connect to my representer and support me, but I’m already feeling detached from the session and I feel alienation toward this move...toward the experience of my father supporting me.

Maybe this experience of support will arrive and permeate, I don’t know.

The Constellation is magic and wonderful things happen in it, even if we don’t understand or aren’t connected to what’s happening in it.

Meanwhile, I’m learning to take responsibility for myself and accept the fact that no matter what I do, my father doesn’t see me, and maybe he’s entirely incapable of seeing me.

That’s my dad, and that’s just the way it is.

I’m taking care of him because that’s my choice, and I’m doing it for me, not so that the little girl inside me will receive a repair from her father and finally see her.

*****

I think about that session, which helped me come to terms with my father, release my expectations of him, and take better care of him.

And when my father died, there was no sorrow left in me for the father I didn’t have.

He was who he was, and in his final days, I gave myself a great gift – I accepted him as he was.

Several months have passed since he died and my journey with my father is not over.

The truth is, our journey with our parents never ends...