How nice that you have those happy memories.

I wish I had some happy memories like that. My father could not go for very long without becoming upset and angry. When I was younger I blamed him for that.

But these days I think that he had an undiagnosed mental illness, maybe depression.

My father certainly did nice, kind and generous things for our family and for me and perhaps there were extended periods of time when he did not get upset and scare everyone, but sadly I can't seem to access those memories.

My dad loved classical music and was at peace when he was all alone and listening to music. We knew better than to intrude during these times and so we had peace of our own when he was at peace like this, but I can't remember times when our whole family was at peace while we were together.

My only memories of being together were times when we had to be careful and guarded and prepared for his "blow ups."

As a kid I thought it was "normal" for fathers to be like this and for kids to be nervous and on edge most of the time. Later I began to notice that some of my friends had fathers who did not seem to explode quite as often as mine did although I could not know what went on behind closed doors.

My father certainly did some wonderful things for me beyond just supporting me. He built me a model train set up that I loved dearly and lavished me with unique and wonderful toys on my birthday and Christmas.

Once he bought me a life-size space model Gemini space capsule. It was an amazing toy which I enjoyed and treasured for many years.