The last time I spoke to my father was July of 1996. It was during that telephone conversation that he relayed to me his wishes to "enjoy the rest of his life free of the inconvenience of children he never wanted in the first place". At 29 years old, it was still hard to be rejected again, but not entirely unexpected. He had never been a good father anyway.

I am the Adult Child of an Alcoholic (ACA, in Al-Anon terminology). My father drank and he worked. Those are the two things I remember from my childhood. He was controlling. He was emotionally abusive. He was distant and angry. My younger brother and I walked on eggshells as children. One tiny misstep earned you a screaming lecture about every one of your faults and inadequacies. But the feeling I remember most vividly from my childhood was fear. I was terrified of my father. All of the time.

When my parents finally divorced in the mid-80's, I remember feeling relieved. He would be gone. No more screaming. No more name-calling. No more threats.

But life was hard for my mother, my brother, and me. In typical fashion, my father had manipulated my mom into accepting a divorce agreement in which he took their entire life savings, paid not one cent in alimony (though my mom had been out of the workforce for the entirety of their 20 plus year marriage), and contributed only the minimal amount of child support required by the state law. My mom worked two jobs to make ends meet and see my brother and myself through high school.

My father bought a brand new red sports car (a Chevy Camaro, if I remember correctly) and paid cash for a home in Wyoming. He never looked back. He was a free man.

My younger brother took the route of "He's dead to me. We're better off without him."

But I, perhaps like many daughters of emotionally distant men, spent my teen years and early 20's desperately trying to fill the void of a love I never felt as a little girl. I would occasionally make contact with my father and feel the hope of change when he would end a phone conversation by telling me how wonderful it was to hear from me and that he would keep in touch. As the days, and weeks, and months would go by with no further communication from my father, the realization would again sink in that I had been played. What a chump I was.

Well, fast forward now to present day and I am a parent myself. I don't scream at my boys. I don't hit them. I don't chip at their burgeoning self-esteem with cutting remarks. I don't care if the television is turned up too loud for my taste, if the toys don't always find their way back to the closet at the end of the day, or if little hands smear peanut butter across my refrigerator. And I don't sit in an easy chair with a drink in one hand and a book in the other glaring at them if they so much as tip-toe past the doorway.

No, what my childhood taught me (and this is years of therapy speaking, folks) is that the cycle of abuse can end. It has ended with me. My three children will grow up without living in fear. I finally found the love I looked for from my father for so long. I found it in my own heart and I give it to my three little boys every day. And the funny thing is.... the more love I give to them, the more I seem to have.

Today will be celebrated by some with golf outings and lunches, with ball games and barbecues, with sappy Hallmark cards and crudely drawn crayon pictures, or perhaps with a couple beers and some hot wings at the local sports bar. Please give your dad a hug, a kiss, and maybe even a new tie! But most of all let him know how grateful you are for his presence in your life and his love.

Happy Father's Day.