An Angry Dream

The dream came out of nowhere. Not that any dream is ever planned or expected, but just the same there I was early Saturday morning in those last few moments between awake and asleep when the realness of it caught me off guard. It's nothing new for me to be dreaming of the angry man (stepfather). I suppose he's there several times a week lurking in the background; huffing and puffing about something insignificant like old times. What made this one so shocking...so nerve shattering is that it felt so real. The angry man was moving out and leaving us all behind. 

In reality it was us that finally escaped...is escaped the right word or did we finally just grow up? Either way we moved on and left him behind. It was his fault. After years of fighting about nothing and everything, the constant verbal and physical abuse, faces slapped, punches thrown, we all got older and moved on. Except for the angry man. He got cancer and died. The disease made him soft and in his weakness I believe a sense of guilt came over him in those final months when the end was in sight. For the rest of us that chapter of our lives was finally over and as he passed we too moved on. Yet there he is every other night an image of anger and strength, a giant that would die for his family even though he treated them with such disgust all too often. It's such an odd feeling to love, fear, respect, and hate somebody all at the same time. 

I dreamed he was leaving us. He'd had enough of the anger. He'd grown tired of feeling so miserable all the time and had found somebody that made him happy. I,  his favorite combatant, was begging him not to go. I told him I loved him and as crazy as it sounded I enjoyed the constant fighting. I know that seems stupid but I guess in some demented way I loved arguing with him...no that's not it. I miss arguing with him. Maybe the real truth is that I'd gladly go another ten rounds with him if it meant he'd also be around to see my life now. 

Twenty years later and I've got such a wonderful family. He would love my boys so much. How smart they are. How they can't stand to take crap from anybody. How much like their father and their grandfather they have become. We weren't blood related, but we were family and in spite of the lack of any genetic connection the angry man is inside my DNA as much as my mother and biological father. I look at my kids and I see him in them too...that strength, the anger when they feel they have been wronged. 

I have no idea if I talked him out of leaving us, but I do know the angry man will always be inside me challenging me to a fight...demanding I be the best version of myself. Though I will always hate him for the hell he raised, I love him for the times in between when he taught me how to be a man and never back down from a fight.