Fishing again

Last night at bedtime, C was really quiet. This was after we'd read our books and I'd told them a few stories about what? I don't remember. Stuff G would ask me about.

Are you ok, C?
Yeah.
What are you thinking about?
I'm thinking about Dad coming back.
Oh, yeah. I think about that too sometimes. What do you remember when you remember dad?
He would take me fishing all the time.
Yeah, he did. You know, I could take you fishing. Or Uncle Greg, he likes to fish.
Then G wanted to add to the drama.
And dad's never going to take us fishing ever again.

I had been making a little progress, moving past hating you for what you did. I think I was even starting to feel sorry for you again, for how sick you must have felt to want to die. And to actually get it done.

But now, now I'm just kind of stuck. I'm angry for my sons whose dad is never going to take them fishing again. They don't deserve that.

I just want to push past all this bullshit and be happy! Happy! I want us to have joy in our lives and forget you ever disappointed us. Forget how sick you were. Because when I remember that, then I worry about my sons.

Did they get that part of you? Is it inherited, what was wrong with you, or was it something that went wrong all those years ago.

You were eleven years old, you told me, when you started getting high. Eleven. How can a brain develop all the neurons and firing and connections it needs during that time when you were feeding it chemicals all day every day? You told me once your family never suspected you were high in high school because they never saw you sober. I don't know if that's true or not but I wouldn't doubt it. I saw as an adult how much you loved it, how you couldn't put it down.

The other day I had a moment where I was struck with how inevitable this was.

Eleven, drug habit starts.
College, chooses psychology major.
Graduates and works with paranoid schizophrenics.

Then I think back to the normal times, the jokes we shared and the fun we had. Then it doesn't make sense anymore.