Most of you know my story. Lately my dad has been saying he hopes he is going to go to heaven when his time comes. He started this a few months ago. At first he said he knew he had done some things but he never mistreated anyone, but he did. He mistreated my mom and I. Now he has admitted that he did wrong things in is marriage. He did not give specifics but I believe he is going to tell it all. His mind is changing. He is declining mentally. I think there is a lot that I do not know that he has done.
I'm not religious so, not belonging to a church, I went to a nearby one to ask how I should go about arranging this.
The vicar was so kind and went to speak with my dad himself. I don't know what was said, but I know that it brought my dad peace.
Even if you or your dad don't belong to a church or follow a religion, you might find that a priest or chaplain would be kind enough to hear your father's confession. Perhaps - ask beforehand - your father could give permission for you to be told whatever you might need to know for your own peace of mind.
It occurs to me that your dad might want to unburden himself of sins you are already aware of (he may have forgotten that you already know certain things) and that not knowing and worrying in case there's worse to discover could actually be causing you greater grief than knowing would do.
But I agree with others that you don't have to be the recipient of your dad's information. You have to take care of yourself.
However you must keep in mind that your dads brain is now permanently broken so I would take what he says with a grain of salt.
I'm sorry you're going thru another difficult patch with dad.
The other (from my father’s mother) actually provided an interesting tidbit of family history that at such a later date gave most of us a chuckle.
Do you have a spouse, or minister, who could hear this “confession” and only tell you a carefully censored version? You can’t unhear or unknow, and I think there is really no reason to have any sort of personal burden passed on to you this way, I mean of him spilling anything out directly to you.
I wish you the best with this, and hope you can find a way to preserve the only better memories for yourself.
xoxo
Good luck!
Faithful, it is hard to be the chosen recipient of these things too difficult in the end to bear alone. But it is also a privilege in some ways. I feel so lucky in having had the dad I did, and so lucky in his having only that one small thing to carry, and I will carry that one thing throughout my own life. Not much else I can say.