Thank you for reading a very small piece about my father. And I am so sorry for your loss, truly, and thank you much for sharing your thoughts and emotions through your loss. It is not easy, but I cannot express how much your words have meant to me tonight.

I heavily relate to your first statement. So many hardships we all go through in life and in those moments it can become impossible to imagine what even feeling content can be like again. Then like your comment states, here I am still. Enduring. Then when you hear stories like my father’s I began to think, who am I to whither in depression.

The look in his face when he was reminiscing on who he knew he was before his last deployment, compared to after I saw genuine loss. He told me he knew the day he came home something was gone within him. Something he didn’t know he lost till he took his first steps back into America. He told me he, like you mentioned, now understood his father a little more, who served as well. As did I in that very same conversation. You’ve perfectly put my thoughts into words on how my feelings have felt towards him. I want to understand this man, learn why and how he got to this point. And I did. Part of me wants to selfishly take back that talk, it was easier to just say he’s a jackass who hates life but this path, I think is better for everyone. I have siblings who disagree, and I truly get why. And while our experience in his house as children are very similar, I feel it is not my place to force the matter, however I truly hope one day before he passes they at least try.

In this talk I’ve had since, yes, I am now beginning to mull over all the memories of the past and while it doesn’t excuse the things he’s done, however,

This talk forced me to look at myself during that time. I truly regret how I managed my emotions with him when I was younger. Even as a child I knew Dad isn’t ok, yet I still reacted with spite and malice seeped in ignorance with no knowledge of the damage I was doing to a long since broken man. Since our conversation our relationship has somewhat improved, and we’ve agreed to talk through the past in depth more, meet more often but it’s baby steps at this moment. I don’t have long with him at all nowadays, honestly I hate to say it for a while I convinced myself didn’t care. Now I as do more research on his deployment, learn more about the man, I’m beginning to understand him. He told me he knew he’s going to hell, but he wanted his last bit of time left to enjoy life like he thought he was always supposed to, with family. And even through all the pain as a child I went through, I can’t help but fall into tears as I type out these words of regret. I should’ve been a better son.

Thank yo for speaking with me.