Ten years ago today, my father died in hospice from colon cancer, an event that was more stunning than sad…mostly because I assumed Satan had more work for him yet to do on the Earth.
I crack a lot of jokes about how awful he was, how his weird sociopathic tone deafness to human feeling made him no more conscious than a shark, how his leaving of my mother was like the fall of the Empire from Star Wars.
You might even say at this point that I’m really punching down…just like he did to me!
Hey-o!
I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that I’ve squeezed a lot of humor and horror out of him over the years, or that I need to let it all go and move on, or that I’d have made even the best father into a villain if it made my stories or my life more interesting.
I wonder all of that, too.
Of our complicated relationship, I’ll just say this:
If you’re someone who takes pride in how your son inherited your gift for eloquent bullshittery, you’d better be nicer to him.
He’s the one who will write your epitaph.