So I got to thinking the other day, how I wish I could find my dad on Facebook or some other social media outlet. An odd, really weird thought I’ll admit, since he died years ago of brain cancer. Before the cancer stole his mind, he was a complex and interesting person. Sometimes he could be one of the kindest people you could know. He knew how to encourage and loved to compliment a person, telling you what he liked about you.
But when the rage came over him, somehow he ‘forgot’ he loved you and that he wanted the best for you, and he’d yell, chide and berate. Castigate. Criticize. Condemn. It is difficult to explain how it happened — starting from nowhere and becoming a living hell — if you didn’t experience it. He could and would utterly demoralize a person.
Still, he was my father. And, I miss him. I think? As I think I possibly do actually miss him the old fear returns. The dull panicky stomach ache.
My life is so much better without him. And I wonder if all my siblings feel that way?
So, I am not so naïve as to believe that we shouldn’t have any difficult people in our lives. I know that my response to my father makes me the person I am today. They shape and form us. But pain is pain. And I was particularly shattered by my father’s treatment. Perhaps it was my temperament and sensitivities. Again, a conversation I’d like to have some day with my siblings is who we are and who we might have been as it relates to him.
Do you have someone in your life that you love, but you know that you would be better off without them in your life? (Not necessarily dead, of course.)
Logic & Imagination 
Hi Mel,
its me again. I knew your dad when he was full of life and energy. I saw some aspect of the “raging” part of him that you had problems with – the”castigating” and “chiding aspect”. But despite these flaws I have one absolutely outstanding memory of your dad. He was a truly, kind, loving and generous man. I had lunch with him on many occasions and each time he spoke highly of his daughters and with such depth of love.
I have seen your dad on many occasions. Not necessarily him but I have many times paused on my walks or stopped completely on my tracks because I see someone who looks like him or looked like I imagine him to look like now.
I remembered the last lunch I had with your dad. It was at the Chinese place on Park Street, very close to the old Kohls grocery store. He told me about a weird dream he had of your mother. She was about to be attacked by a big snake and he jumped in to grapple with the snake and in defense of your mother. I thought that what he did in that dream showed his courage and his love. And I never doubted that if confronted in real life with a similar challenge that he will act any differently than he did. Your dad died too early. The same way my mother did. But have no regrets or sadness about his untimely and early transition to the other side. It is not idle to think that those that God loves dearly He sometimes takes away from this this world in order to save them from the corruption of this world.
I hope and pray that you will continue to keep the memory of your father alive for he was a very good man and a mensch.
Take care,
Uche
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