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Reflections of Fatherhood, On The Eve of Father’s Day
Here’s what I know of fathers.
My grandfather, on my dad’s side, was a cantankerous, mean, rage-filled drunk, sitting at the kitchen table, chain smoking cigarettes, ambling periodically down the narrow concrete sidewalk back to the single car garage in the back, to take swigs of hard liquor from a bottle because his wife, my grandmother, would not allow drinking in the house.
He sat at the kitchen table staring out the window into his modest but always nicely trimmed backyard, burping from the alcohol, and smoking cheap cigarette after cheap cigarette, only grumbling briefly, and sometimes flying into a rage.
That’s what defines my grandfather: rage.
Blind rage.
Road rage a half-century before road rage even became a thing.
Rage at the world. Rage at everybody in the world, including those closest to him; or, especially towards those closest to him.
His children did not visit him. His children did not particularly like him. His children did not want to be around him.
And, you should not blame them.
There are human limits that not even the bonds of family can endure.
