Posted by Mal on July 27, 2005, at 21:41:19
In reply to 60 years worth of anger, posted by cockeyed on May 12, 2005, at 0:15:24
> I was watching a PBS show on surviving fire and the old anger blew in. When I was 4 my friend Jimmy's father came home from the war...the "good" war, WWII. He was a hero. And the first thing I ever saw him do, still in uniform, was kick Jimmy across the floor and yell at him to get the hell out of his way. My father was a firefighter, a hero who fought his way out of a killing fire, a man loved and respected by everybody. I hated him. I still do.His way of making me a man was to slap me across my head with the back of his hand and tell me to stop whining. And I'm damned by the fantasy that had he not died young, ruined by the stress and horror, I'd be his caretaker and every chance I'd get I'd remind him of that backhand of his that I've inherited. And would that stop his sniveling? Hell if I care, I just want to hit him to let him know what it was like.Now I'm a grandfather. I chose to have no children of my own, I wouldn't inflict that part of hell on a child. But I was a step father and god bless my step son who was gay and who died in my arms, He told me he loved me. And that was the proudest moment of my life. and my step-daughter calls on me to "babysit" for he three boys and knows that I will never do what was done to me. Altho, to tell the truth, I think the boys are probably getting to be more mature than me. But, God, it hurts to remember and I can't let go of the hate. I was just a little kid, so was Jimmy, and look at what those "heroes" did. But I'll never know their hells and how they tried so hard to quench the flames killing themselves with the bottle. They never had a place like this to tell people what it's like to be a "hero" and the price to be paid. I wish I could be a hero and forgive but I, to this day, can't. And that hurts.
What can I say to that? I guess "GOOD JOB for stopping the cycle, resisting the tendency to repeat history."
Fondly, MAL
poster:Mal
thread:496718
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/child/20050226/msgs/534512.html