I was struck by a sudden memory from my youth the other night, as I walked by two young girls and their cheap, fragile toys that had been scattered across a public sidewalk.
\n
\nI was about six or seven, and forbidden to have a pet.\u00a0 Even then, my family was paranoid and antisocial, so we didn\u2019t have any friends or social events, either.\u00a0 It was just my mom and dad, constantly fighting, and me dreaming up imaginary people and places.\u00a0 It was a beautiful spring day, and I\u2019d collected snails from the bottom of our garden.\u00a0 Back then I lived in a posh house with a wonderful yard, and the firepit \u2013 intended to accommodate a large gathering, but abandoned by my parents \u2013 was a favorite for the snails.\u00a0 For a kid without friends or pets, it was always a thrill to capture some from the wild.\u00a0 Fireflies, slugs, snails, ladybugs, and hours upon hours cautiously feeding squirrels and chipmunks.<\/p>\n
Snails didn\u2019t do much, but I was a patient kid.\u00a0 I lined them all up on the back steps and had a little pageant.\u00a0 My dad was out in the backyard, avoiding my mom.\u00a0 Often, he\u2019d just be drinking or smoking a little beyond the treeline, curled up beneath an old dogwood like the yellowed bones of some long dead animal.\u00a0 Effete fool that he was, he never did any yardwork.\u00a0 But her lunatic screams would always eventually convince him to return to the house for a vicious fight over some trivial shit.\u00a0 On this particular day that has burned into my mind, he came bounding up, crunching all my snails underfoot, not even noticing them or me.\u00a0 There was no pause as the snails cracked and shattered, and as I screamed out in horror and sympathetic pain.<\/p>\n
Most of his life was spent in a grim little netherworld.\u00a0 Sometimes he would just stare vacantly at us, as if we weren\u2019t real.\u00a0 The things that haunted that man were great and horrible\u2026<\/p>\n
I was crushed, of course.\u00a0 I took the death of all those snails on my soul.\u00a0 It was my fault they were there to begin with, after all.\u00a0 I remember blaming myself for their demise for years afterwards.\u00a0 And, that night, I was sullen and tearful, crying myself to sleep.<\/p>\n
All, now, the product of a very obviously damaged psyche of a lonely little boy.\u00a0 And yet another nail in the old forgiveness coffin.\u00a0 It comes up now and again from my more weak-minded friends and acquaintances.\u00a0 More so in light of the Post article.\u00a0 Time to forgive your parents!<\/p>\n
Why?\u00a0 Why forgive them?\u00a0 What\u2019s the point?\u00a0 What do I gain if I forgive them?<\/p>\n
I did tell my dad, in his last moments as he choked to death in a hospital bed over a year ago, that I forgave him.\u00a0 He died as soon as I said it, though the doctors said that he was effectively braindead six hours before.\u00a0 I lied to him.\u00a0 I don\u2019t forgive him.\u00a0 I said it because, no matter how evil you are, or what crimes you\u2019ve committed, you shouldn\u2019t have to suffer and die alone.\u00a0 At least, not with a son standing over you hating you.\u00a0 That\u2019s just wrong.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t have been able to forgive myself if I\u2019d cursed him.\u00a0 His death was the horrible endgame of a seven year struggle with emphysema and, believe me, it wasn\u2019t pretty.\u00a0 I hope people lie to me when I die.<\/p>\n
I see no reason to truly forgive my parents.\u00a0 They ravished my childhood\u2026 And my adulthood.\u00a0 Cleaning up mom\u2019s estate involved almost two years of my life, battling the IRS and creditors.\u00a0 I spent six months after dad died being disgusted at his financial woes.\u00a0 I had to run away from his estate.\u00a0 Drop everything and let the creditors take it.\u00a0 I might have stuck it out if it wasn\u2019t for brain surgery and massive change of life distracting me.\u00a0 But it would have been another two years of battle, with nothing to show for it.\u00a0 The house was a lost cause from the get-go, and all the money was gone.\u00a0 The stolen millions from our company business spent on emphysema (medical care, and even oxygen, was all paid cash only) and 20 years staying below the radar without employment.\u00a0 A large portion of the money, no doubt, was given over to the fundamentalist church that he belonged to.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s there where the word forgiveness sticks.\u00a0 Because he told me, a few years ago when I went to confront him, why he did what he did.\u00a0 Why\u2019d he leave us and take all the money?\u00a0 Why\u2019d he leave us in the poorhouse?\u00a0 And his reply was that he \u201cthought it would be best for you, son.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amazing.\u00a0 I\u2019m to forgive that?\u00a0 He later went on to say that he had forgiven himself, thanks to the open arms of his welcoming non-denominational church who soaked him for hundred of thousands of dollars.\u00a0 Fuck them.\u00a0 Fuck them for even breeding the hope of forgiveness in a man who left his son high and dry.<\/p>\n
Mom\u2026well, I can understand abandoning her because, Jesus Christ, what a fruitcake.\u00a0 But me?\u00a0 I was 12.\u00a0 I was innocent.\u00a0 I had no part in whatever retarded shit haunted him, and I am owed.\u00a0 I am still owed, by both of them.\u00a0 And I\u2019m not talking about money.\u00a0 I want a mom and dad.\u00a0 I want, at the very least, the memory of a mom and dad.\u00a0 That was all denied me.\u00a0 I know I\u2019m not alone in this.\u00a0 I know others have had it worse.\u00a0 But, still, the next person who talks to me about forgiveness is going to get a pencil in their eye.\u00a0 I hope they\u2019ll forgive me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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