When I think about her relationship with my father... I wonder if she just couldn't handle him. Did she start backslidding mentally because it was better, easier than staying in the present. Was it easier to get lost in her own psychosis than it was to really admit how lousy her life with her husband was? Even when I was a kid and they'd fight, I knew what he did was wrong. I blamed her for him leaving, but I also thought he treated her badly. He was always so self- important and self-absorbed. Every conversation was turned into something about himself. He had a way of doing that and it drove everyone nuts. You always felt like he was superior, not because he really was, but because he needed to believe he was. His own arrogance led him to believe that he could say whatever the hell he liked to anyone at all - but if they responded, well. How dare they? How dare anyone say anything negative about him?

A fine example of a man who could dish it but couldn't handle getting back what he brought on himself.

In many ways they were polar opposites. Mom wanted peace and calm while dad thrived on chaos and drama. Two radically different sets of needs trying to coexist in a merged world. I can to this day remember mom trying to talk to him and feeling... less than him. Or that's how she believed he saw her. One night not long before he left us I heard them fighting. I didn't understand it very much then. Now as a grown man it kills me. She was asking for the simplest of things. Emotional support. She felt doomed in his presence. He wanted particular things accomplished then slammed her when she tried to do them. The gist was if you can't be supportive then at the very least, stop dragging me down.

"If you love me why do you take so much pleasure in insulting me just for kicks?"

I can still hear her saying that. How did he respond to her request to back off and stop being so hurtful? By slinging more insults. Pushing more buttons. Belittling her for things undone and insulting anything accomplished. Hitting raw nerves one at a time until she finally snapped and punched him.