It's Father's Day. My father is dead and I don't miss him at all.

[ReluctanceTango]

17. I know how you feel

My father was the worst human being not serving a life sentence that walked the face of the earth.

There wasn't a woman he wouldn't cheat on or sponge off of.

He thought nothing of beating his children when they were infants and toddlers.

There wasn't a single lie he wouldn't tell to further his own self-interest. Like that perennial philanderer telling his parents that my mother cheated on him and got pregnant with another man's child. Even though that child looks exactly like he did. And then those grandparents cut us off and never had anything to do with us again. I mean NOTHING. Over his lies.

Oh, and he disappeared for 5-10 years at a time, not even a postcard to tell us he was alive or dead--never mind to remember a birthday or holiday. Child support? Please. Not one penny of that came our way. On the rare occasions when he showed up again, it was only to cause trouble.

Like that time he slimed back into our lives when I was 22, and was furious that I refused to have anything to do with him. As if I didn't know that piece of crap for what he was. He preyed on the more gullible and weak-hearted family members who thought I should "give him a chance--he's your FATHER!" (F*CK THAT NOISE). He pulled every filthy trick imaginable to manipulate these idiots into convincing me to do what he wanted--and I'd warned them he would do it! I refused to yield, and it took everything I had not to say "I TOLD YOU SO," when he wound up burning each and every one of them.

He died knowing that I hated his guts, that I thought he was the lowest piece of crap walking the planet. And he died in agony. The only time I was ever happy to hear anything about him was when my mother told me he'd died, and it was a miserable death of suffering and agony. It was the least that scumbag deserved. The very least.

I hated him until the day he died.

I'll hate him until the day I die.

And I'll hate him even after I'm dead.

He earned it.