My father was a bitter man.
Some people have described him as sadistic. But I disagree. I don't really believe he took actual pleasure from hurting others.
No, he was more about punishing others for not understanding what his life was like. It was just that his punishments were so cleverly angry.
After two years of significantly declining health, my father was diagnosed with Juvenille Diabetes at the age of 12. It seems amazing to many that it took so long to diagnose something so obvious but as my Grandmother always said, "They just didn't check those things back then".
Once he was diagnosed he spent over 2 months in the hospital, away from school and other children. After my Grandmother died I found a box containing a scrapbook she had made from his time in the hospital. It contained every single one of the menus from his stay in the hospital along with other trivial "mementos" of his time in the hospital. It also contained numerous letters from his classmates wishing him well. It seemed apparent that he was a "school project". You know, "Let's all practice our writing skills and send letters to the poor little sick boy".
Now I am simply projecting here, however I do share many aspects of my Father's temperament and I can assure you that I would have felt annoyed by the smothering love and constant fretting of my Mother and humiliated and angry to be the class project. Maybe he felt like this, maybe he didn't. Maybe I can understand this because this is how I felt after my Father's death.
As a result of the delay in early treatment and the general progression of the disease, my Father began to lose his eyesight when I was four. It was a slow process however by the time I started Kindergarten he had lost all of his vision except for the ability to perceive movement and shadows.
His anger over this disability was the source of such great bitterness that he was compelled to punish any person who he felt did not "know what it was like" to be blind.
During the time he was losing his sight his parents came from California for a springtime visit. They were attempting to be helpful around the house and had been helping my Mom take down the storm windows on the house. One of the windows was left laying on the porch when they went inside for lunch. Upon discovering this, my Father went full tilt. He ranted endlessly about how dangerous it was to leave something lying around like that where a blind person could not only step on it and fall but also cut their feet (diabetics have poor circulation and injuries to the foot can easily turn gangrenous).
Now one could easily understand his frustration up to this point. It was a hazardous situation and he was worried about what would happen to him once he was totally blind.
But his anger and bitterness wouldn't allow him to drop it. He decided as "punishment" that his parents must put on blindfolds and walk around the block using the white canes of blind people. My Grandparents obeyed out of fear of his anger. When they returned his anger had still not dissipated and he ordered them out of our home and insisted that they return to California early.
My Grandparents did leave the house but were forced to check into a hotel in Des Moines because the flights were too expensive to change. My Mother brought me to the hotel where they were staying to say a brief goodbye to them. They all admonished me not to tell my Dad that they were in a hotel. They had no need to worry.
I knew that the ability to lie, keep secrets, and be one step ahead of my Father was the key to my s
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