A Decade of Distance: Reconnecting with Kelly

I am 45 and divorced. My husband constantly cheated on me, so I decided to leave him. But our daughter Kelly, who was then 12, was convinced that I was the bad guy, said she didn’t want to see me anymore and stayed with her rich dad. All this time, she refused to have any contact with me. But almost 10 years after the divorce, Kelly came to me asking for forgiveness. She had grown into a young woman of 22, and through her own experiences, she said she’d come to realize how much I had sacrificed and how unfairly she had judged me. Tears streamed down her face as she apologized for the lost years, explaining that her father’s influence had clouded her perspective, but she now saw the truth. I hugged her tightly, feeling a mix of pain and relief, and we promised to rebuild our relationship, step by step, knowing that healing would take time but that love could mend what time had broken.