Looking for Love in all the wrong places or why I write

I believe I have discussed in prior sessions the unusual aspects of my family. However, I don't think you can fully appreciate how much fun it was, as a child, to grow up with this true group of originals, but I think this story will help. When I was 10, my family was forced to attend family therapy (bullshit) sessions. My brothers, always helpful, never went so, in the end, it was just my Mother and Father (Yes, I had one ... but the passed away) my Sister and me. Well, we had this great, progressive, free-thinking asshole, who felt it best if all secrets were laid bare on the floor in front of us like a wounded, bleeding animal. With that image in your head, imagine being 10 and not wanting to watch a puppy bleed. Anywho, when no one fessed up to anything, the always helpful therapist, prodded my Father (badgered ... hounded ... haunted ... annoyed ....better words) to come clean to his young daughter about his past. I still cringe at the look on my Father's face (God, there were times I really loved that man) when he had to tell one of the only things he was proud of in his life that he had been a bank robber and done jail time before I was born. But, I really think, it was the self-congratulatory look on the therapists face that has burned that episode in my psche forever. As for my Father's news, I always suspected there were things I didn't know about my parents past. Kids just know these things (whispers in the dark, drawers and closets that are off limits and looks shared between conspirators that you just can't put your finger on). Never lie to your children. They always find out and when(and if it's without your help) it's always worse than if you'd just told them. But, as for my Father, it made no difference to me. He was still the same grouchy, mean and bitter man he'd always been. And, he was mine and he loved me. He was also a terrible alcoholic (a mushy one, thank God) who spent most of the time drunk out of his mind or passed out on the bed. And, still, I didn't care. It's hard to explain my loyalty to him to the normal world. I guess I've always routed for the under-dog (except my beloved Yankees ... but that's another day) and my Father was, certainly, the underdog in my house. My Mother belittled, argued, ranted and raved at him with the full force of all that she was and, as young as I was, I realized she had her reasons. My brothers alternated between pretending he didn't exist or hand to hand combat with him. And, as for my Sister, well, she was terrified of him. Drunk or not, he yelled alot at her and, emotionally, it wore her down. So, why was I such a staunch defender of this flawed, crippled man? I think it happened a few weeks prior to our historic family therapy session. I was searching in those secret drawers and closets that we were never, ever, supposed to go in and I found a folder with a handwritten title on the cover that read "Black Coffee and Cigarettes". Inside was a treasure trove of poems, short stories, and commentaries, all written by my old man. And, they were good. Damn good. It started to dawn on me then, as I read them, why he was so bitter, so mal-contented. Here was a man who wanted to be something else (a writer) and, as life so often does, he was blown off course by a wife and 5 children to support. No excuse, even at that age I knew, for his nastiness with us (we didn't ask to be there) but an explanation, none-the-less. And, lo and behold, and answer to another question. Why I loved to write, why I knew, so young, why there was nothing better than inventing far, away places where everything worked out, nothing was scary and all families loved each other. In finding out what, really, imprisoned my Father, I had stumbled upon what set me free. Catharisis thou are truly pen and pad. So, that the long and the short of it. Why I write, why I'm screwed in the head (well, part of it anyway) and why I love and miss my Father. Thanks Daddy.