Teaching to Hate

I should hate you.

Hating a father is right when he abandons the family. Such hatred forms a formidable shieldwall, my siblings closing ranks against your selfish destruction. We cannot rely upon society to deride the man, only on ourselves to keep family life surviving, moving onwards, a collective lugging on a mandated journey until we can finally leave the staggered start-line of a cold home.

But such hatred helps no-one, save to source a twisted vindication for you.

Instead you taught me consequence when you leveraged 100k against the family home then left.

You taught me restraint when you became a sexpat.

You taught me tolerance when you berated your students.

You taught me reflection when you refused to see a counsellor.

You taught me honesty when you breathe that noxious mix of nervousness and arrogance, a facile smile.

You taught me discipline when you spent everything our ancestors left.

Like all great learning, the teacher provided only the stimulus. It was up to me to find the lesson.

I can’t hate you as you are, a fifteen-year old boy in a seventy-year-old body, still waiting to be told the lesson.