Dad

Today my dad cried.

It was after church, we were in the culvers parking lot.

When we asked him why, he wasn't able to talk. We kept pressing him, and all he could manage after a thousand "whats wrong's" all we got was a "my life"

Talk about scary. Two things happens at that moment. One, my imaginary castle crumbled down as if it were made of dry sand. One of the few fortresses against the troubles of life came down in a matter of seconds, quiet randomly so. Two, I realized that life doesn't go away when you get older. It's a safeguard often used to think things will get better. When your older and mature, things like crying about your life being the shits doesn't happen any more. Guess not. He's half a century old and can still cry about something I might consider a problem.

In movies, often when a strong Father breaks down and cries, its an earth shattering, image breaking experience. I could never relate to that.

Now I can.

How can I trust this terrible earth when that can happen?

I blamed myself at first. But thats foolish, I'm only part of his problem. Yesterday he asked me many times, desperatly maybe, to go see the new James Bond. I said no, and ended up going with a friend.

That might have been the breaking point. All the stress from the election must have worked away at his walls. Because they came down.

Work isn't going well, Married life isn't what it once was, the kids are growing up and away. Well, its life. But why does life insist on being such a son of a bitch all the time?

"Material pleasures will have there equal or higher in pain"- Said somewhere in Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures by Marry Baker Eddy. She wrote it with bigger words and in a way that made better sense, but thats the jist of it. Why?

Why did this happen to my dad?

How could it?

He doesn't deserve it. Yet it was shoved in his face without pause or mercy.