You died with all of your mysteries (and miseries) intact. I never bothered or had the courage to ask about the source of it all. I just stood up to you. I just challenged you. I was your scourge. I was also your pride.

You were never able to grind me under your workboots- like your own children- all in the name of being a "realistic" parent. I never told them that they would fail. You never told me that I would fail. You didn't have the nerve. My daddy could beat up you.

So now that you're dead, burned to ashes and scattered to the winds, I worry this problem to death. I think about your motivations. I think about your pain. I think about the pain you inflicted with what appeared a great deal of forethought on others. The others you were charged to protect and to nurture. Was your inner life so barren, so horribly infertile that you had no other way of functioning? Or were you just the world's biggest ass?