They said "accept him", as a direct object.

Not "accept the fact that he had negative qualities", which is something entirely different.

Forgiveness is all about detachment. Forgiveness is not only good for the forgiven, it is good for you, too. If you let hate fester in you, it will incline you toward wrath. Hate the sin and not the sinner. Love and pray for your enemy.

i'd even go as far as saying that forgiveness is primarily good for you or me. the accused may not even need to know that they have been forgiven.

Now, that doesn't mean you should just act as if nothing happened. Actions have consequences, and those consequences should be determined by the gravity of the actions.

"Abuse" is a vague term and often people mean very different things by it. Some people call their father throwing a fit of anger or cussing their kids out about something every now and then "abuse". And then other people use the same term to refer to really diabolical stuff, like child-buggering. With the less serious and more understandable stuff, you should also take into consideration what your father was going through at the time, and how that might have influenced his actions and his judgment. When I got older and began to understand what my father has had to deal with (including me lol), it really made me not care at all about some of the rough-ups we had. So I mean whether or not you should want to patch up the relationship with your father should really be determined by the character of the abuse, the extent of it, the circumstances, et cetera. This should also determine what exactly "patching up" that relationship means - like what kinds of boundaries you set, and so on.

i pretty much feel the same when i look at my experience growing up.

But... I don't let that define my life. I miss mom, and I always will, but I made peace with it and have moved on. You can't just spend your life sobbing into a pillow or grinding my teeth in rage, at some point you have to go back to just living again.