I grew up without a father, who came home every night after work, started eating before the rest of us, finished, and then promptly adjourned to his workshop to get into his hobbies. He never completed a single father-son project with me. He took the family to those places where families go for weekends in the summer, but his heart wasn’t in it. At my bedtime, he began a novel, reading to me a chapter a night for four nights, then stopped those so important nocturnal connections.

He never started a conversation with me or stuck around if I started it. He didn’t enjoy my company, or my sister’s. Dad was all about Dad.

Today he’s senile at 95, but still mentally equipped to treat my mother like he always did – his maid.

NOW loves me, or so he says. NOW he wants my company and attention. NOW I can’t stand him but do the right thing and lie, treating him with pseudo respect and telling him I love him.

When he dies, I won’t care and I’ll be happy on behalf of my mother. He never gave us his love and now no one loves him back.

Irv