I love my parents, couldn’t ask for any better…. But until I was 15 or so, my dad had a shit ton of anger problems. I didn’t go through anything THIS bad, but waking him up for his night shift job was an exercise in combat training some nights, depending on his nightmares and level of sleep. Other days I got to learn just how hard a 6’4″ 375 lb man could hit (here’s a hint: HARD). It’s a fucked up thing, because I still love the man and forgive him everything he ever did, but I don’t excuse any of it. He’s gone now, and never once apologized to me for any of that, but he never touched any of the other kids, which leads to a weird mental state of “maybe I deserve this.”

Because of all this, I learned to control my own anger, that overreacting to things is seriously problematic, and once damage is done, it can never be undone. I learned a lot from him, sometimes lessons he didn’t mean to teach. He was just human.

My mother, however, was a god damn Saint.