It is so sad that someone could be so loved by the world out there, but change behind closed doors. That must hurt!
Your story reminds me about my Oupa, a side I never saw, whuch Mom would tell me about as it angered her at times. He was Mom's adoptive father, married my Ouma when she was pregnant with Mom (another sad story) but his outbreaks of wrath had a profound effect on Mom and her siblings. My Ouma was a darling. Oupa changed in his latter years and tried to make up for all the hurt he caused, but the scars remained.
You have a gift of drawing your readers into the moment of the story @owasco, I can just imagine that look!
Life can be so sad, but thankfully also so wonderful!
Thank you Lizelle. I value your comments so much!
"Street angel, home devil" I have heard it called. If only we could all just be our genuine selves wherever we go. Home becomes, for many, a place to let off the steam that might have built up outside of the home due to the stress of being false. I have compassion for my father's foibles, now that I have made so many of my own. Unfortunately, unlike your Oupa, my father managed to continue to be quite mean even to several of his grandchildren. It got so bad with one of my children (you know the one), that I had to threaten to never visit my father again if he didn't shape up and be a loving grandfather, instead of a brute. He was very hurt, but he did stop being such an ass. I have since heard, from a girlfriend my father had after my mother's death, that my mother regularly threatened to leave him for the same reason. That he told this to his his girlfriend helps me to see that he regretted some of his actions and intents.
Some of his children still idolize him, as the townspeople mostly did. I wonder how that has affected their lives.
A big sigh here from me! How can a grandfather be so mean, especially to someone vulnerable? At least it stopped, and as you say, it must have made him realize what he had done!
A dear friend of mine was one of four children, and when in her teens, her father told her Mom to choose between him or the children. It is unbelievable that a father could do that!
He moved to a city some 10-hour drive away, married someone else, and apparently, her children and grandchildren adored him!
Why he was like that to his own blood is beyond comprehension, her mother had to support them on her own!
He started writing letters to her oldest son, and when he got cancer, she and her siblings drove all that way to see him.
She never forgave him, and I don't blame her!
Very apt!
Interestingly, several of the commenters on my post, and others about fathers, say their father was affable outside the home, and cruel inside the home. My husband was one of them too (I married my father). It's very common apparently! I'd say "like father like son" but my husband's father was a sweetheart through and through. I lived with them for a few months, knew him for several decades, and never saw an unkind thing from him.