Before I understood Dad’s pain, he shouted at me as I lifted gently under his left arm to help him stand and turn for bed, and I shouted back at him to not shout at me, making sure to shout louder than he. Lying panting in his bed, he explained the horrible pain he was having in his chest.  Understanding his pain helped me find more compassion and patience, helped reduce my resentment, helped me speak softly and forgivingly, and I thought in the night of the apology I would offer him the next morning.  I’m sorry I shouted at you, Dad.  Can explain something to you?  Just let me get through it, and then you can respond.  I have always felt afraid of you and intimidated by you.  You were always so smart and so strong and so successful, a superstar to so many, and I wanted to be all you are but knew I would never be.  I have always wanted to make you proud, but you never told me you were proud of me.  I have always wanted your love, but you never told me you loved me.  I always felt afraid of your disapproval and disappointment.  And so, I feel destroyed and annihilated when you shout at me or become angry or disappointed with me.  And now, at age 60, I shout back or become defensive, only to stay alive.  Always in my life I have shrunk to be as small as possible, I have shrunk into shame, I have sunk into depression, for I am a man who has depression.  But, I don’t want to die, Dad, and to not die when you are disgusted with me or disappointed with me or angry with me, I fought back.  That’s what is happening.  I’m trying to survive, to stay alive, to not die.  But I can see that you weren’t angry with me last night; you were in severe physical pain, and so I apologize to you for shouting back at you when you shouted at me, because you really weren’t shouting, you were just crying out in pain.  I’m sorry.  But in the morning, I found him too feeble and in pain and ashen-faced and miserable and weakened, and could not bring myself to add to his suffocating burdens.  My apology may have brought understanding, but would have added to his heaviness and suffering.  Instead, I listened to his troubles and called for the hospice nurse to come, on a Sunday, and administered the morphine, and did what I could to safeguard his comfort.

(Pictured: boot hill grave in Peoche NV, the small mining town of my father Nelson’s grandfather Nelson.)