Broken fathers

I last saw my dad and grandfather in the late 1960s.

My mother's father died before I was born.

I've tried to be a good husband and father but fallen miserably short.

These were men I could not always admire but certainly loved.

I can't say I understand their challenges, faults, or their times. 

I don't.

Yet I am willing to accept them and love them as they are [were], broken men negotiating with life the best way they could with what they had.

That's all I ask for myself.

Before you judge and condemn me, stop just a half-second and consider where and who I come from.

I'm nowhere near the man I ought to be, but I'm not the man I used to be, either.

God be merciful to me, a sinner. 

Originally posted 11 November 2018