My father was diabetic, yet he neglected the strict regimen this illness requires and as a result he learned, when he was 52 and I (his younger son) was 11, that he would be losing his eyesight slowly but inexorably.

For my father, love was conditional. Do as he wanted and he was the most doting of parents; fail to mark his whims and witness a rage of terrifying proportions. Despite his small stature and diminutive voice, he never failed to strike terror, guilt, and shame in the minds of his captive audience (my mother, brother, and me).

He wasn't violent, not physically at least. He never hit anyone, but then he didn't need to; his words were enough.

Dad was a master of guilt, of using people's consciences against them, of turning loyalty into slavery and love into bondage. In his view of the world, the fact that he provided the family with an income made him worthy of absolute gratitude. Any assertiveness, denial, or even personality difference for him was a sign of selfishness and baseness on our part.

As his diabetes worsened and his eyesight dimmed, he turned for pity to my mother. A worse choice could hardly be made. My mother, never a caring person, hated my father bitterly already for his verbal abuse and regarded him only with coldness.

Their fights almost boggle the mind. Typically my mother would say, do, or fail to do something, and the result could be a tirade from Dad lasting from 1-4 hours, as much as 3 times a week.

He spared no excess on words. All three of us, most so my mother, have at one time or another been called vermin, dog, demon, viper, snake, cancerous evil, sick and perverted, psychotic, neurotic, addicted, lazy, selfish, self-centered, ungenerous, uncaring, unloving, brutal, or callous. My father has cursed me, cursed the day I was born, accused the three of us of conspiring against him, of plotting his destruction.

But more powerful than his words was the absolute authority with which they were said. For the children to question him at the peak of his rage would only invite more torrents. So we learned to hide the truth, to hide what we sensed was right, to mask our natural instincts under a facade of perverse loyalty.

For despite all, I felt sorry for him. How could I not? He was my father, and the Bible said to honour one's father and mother no matter what they did. He was a blind old man suffering from a severe diabetes and hostile treatment from co-workers.

He would cry and weep sometimes, tears flowing down his cheeks at his wife's "antagonism and hatred", and how the entire world, especially his family, exploited and took advantage of him. It was impossible, even for me, to not feel compassionate at these performances.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to grow up without guilt. To not have to virtually bow and scrape for each meal and each paid bill. To believe that love could be unconditional, that I could be loved even if I yelled, or pouted, or expressed my own feelings.

Ours was a household where the slightest misstep could provoke a fight. Words were not a medium of communication, they were a minefield, verbal nitroglycerine.

Why am I writing this now? I don't know; I moved out of his house over a year ago and now have no fear of him. He is 63 now, secure in the greed of his insatiable ego and the absolute pride of his unrepentance. So I guess I write, looking for an audience, somewhere, don't know where, don't know when......

S-youth, Sept. 2, 1997.