12.08.2006 - 1:22 p.m.

I do not understand. Why bring a child into the world if you�re just going to tell him he�s useless? Why name your daughter if you�re just going to call her �bitch� all the time anyway? Why even exist if you�re just going to terrorize your own family?

Families screw up, I�m aware of this. Mine was loving and unbroken and well enough off, and we still have our issues; the things your mothers and fathers and siblings do to each other echo more strongly than anything. And I know I�ve been sheltered�but I also know that death, divorce, poverty, and addiction all happen, in all kinds of awful permutations. I�ve seen what they�ve done to my friends, and I know better than to think I've seen or understood everything.

That�s a different part of the problem. It seems to me that lots of people love each other enough to get through those things, damaged maybe, maybe even broken in one way or another, but alive. Stronger. Not monsters, not the next link in the chain.

But some don't. Somebody please explain this to me.

And then, what do you say to a person who sincerely believes he doesn�t deserve to exist? �Please, may I tear your father's eyes out?�

I listened while he cried. I called back when he hung up, until he was able to leave with a "See you later" instead of a "Goodbye." It was all I could do over the distance.

I hope it was enough. I hope he lives, and lives, and lives, because he is young and good and true, no matter what he thinks. I hope he lives, because his father is wrong.

previous | next