Happy Birthday August 5 2018

August 5 2018: That would have been my father's 90th birthday. Surely, we thought, he would make it. How own father had lived to be almost 100.

Instead, he died suddenly a few months after his 80th birthday. We had a difficult, nay terrible, relationship. I had hoped to find a way to repair or forge a relationship with him that did not devolve into arguments (reading various books recommended--pop psychology), but such was not to be.

Two years ago, my mother, with whom my relationship has been in steady decline also (though once, I thought we were quite close) cornered me in Florida. She said "Your father cried because you didn't talk to him. How does it make you feel to know that you made an old man cry?" That is a very short version of a very long list of accusations.

I responded badly, only thinking of what I should have said later.

My family thinks I should get therapy or at least write things down instead of TALKING ALL THE TIME.  OK.

At his funeral, his cousin Ira spoke. He recited a parable about "the TALL Man." The family is proud of its height--though the gene missed me, it went to both my children.

But then he spoke about my father as "the angry man."