If My Tone Offends, Blame My Lazy Father
by P.L. Thomas
In the early 1980s, I was newly married, seeking my first teaching job, and necessarily living in my parents’ home, which also housed my sister, her husband, and child. We were a pretty interesting extended family nestled in the Upstate of rural South Carolina.
One night, I was suddenly startled awake by my sister ripping the screened door off its hinges as she shouted for me to wake up. After a blur of jumping out of bed and following her into my parents’ bedroom, I found my father in his bathroom.
He, the floor, and seemingly the walls around him were covered in his blood.
This is my story of coming to terms in my early 20s with the mortality and humanity of my father, who transitioned for me that day from an idealized Superman to fully (and wonderfully) human, and along with my mother, two
