text: Rage. An intense feeling of anger. It's unique to every person and for me it burned. Filled my veins, deafened my senses, clouded my mind. It tires to consume... everything. Everything. Some think anger is darkness invading. That it poisons the mind, blackens the heart, and turns even the kindest of men wicked. It is my belief that it isn't darkness invading but an extension of ourselves. It does not blacken your heart, it is your heart and just like your heart It can not be removed, only taken care of. My father was a patient man. He rarely yelled, rarely cried, he was always kind, and always loving. To me my father was perfect, everything a man should be. Wise. Strong. Empathetic. He was also an angry man though you wouldn't know it because unlike so many he had mastered his anger. I was so lucky. So incredibly blessed and I knew it. Who wouldn't want a father like him? If I became even a quarter of the man he was, I think I would be a pretty good man. Yet... yet... Yet as he grew older, he grew sicker. Decades of smoking and drinking and back breaking labor finally catching up but It didn't change anything, not really. Not for me. He was still the incredible man I desperately wanted to emulate but a part of me, a part I so desperately wished didn't exist, grew angry at him. Resentful. How dare he fall victim to the passage of time? How dare he sleep all morning, all afternoon, and all night? How dare he need help breathing? How dare he? How dare he?! ...How dare I feel this way about the man who did nothing but love and support me? How dare I belittle him, even just in my own mind, for being less than superman? How dare I? How dare I?! how dare I... He died on a cold October night. It both came as a surprise and didn't. It was my mom who found him but it was me who was pumping his chest, terrified I was hurting him, killing him, begging in a God I didn't believe in not to take him away. Of course, despite my begging, he died not long later. Rage didn't begin to describe what I was feeling. How do you describe that a piece of your soul had been lopped off? That despite your still beating heart and your ever expanding lungs you felt like you were dying? How do you explain the burning fury that sat in your heart that refused to be dosed no matter how much you begged and pleaded for it to disappear? How? My father taught me that anger can not be bartered with, can not be rationalized, and it Can. Not. Be. Ignored. He was right. Try all you like. I know I have. I say this as a man who has been forced to deal with a tragedy and still has not moved past it. I say this as a man who lies in bed crying, wishing with all his being that my father was still walking beside me. I say this as a man who looks at his reflection and wonders what if I had said goodnight one last time, hours before my mother came home and saw the man who taught me how to be a man barely breathing? Would he still be alive? Would those few extra hours have saved him? Probably. ... Most definitely. Though I guess we'll never know, will we? I will have to forever live with the fact that I could have saved my father's life, and may forever live with the anger that knowledge brings. Though I get to choose how I express that anger. I get to choose how I deal with it. I get to choose the type of angry man I am and I choose to accept it. I will not bottle the anger and I will not hide from it and I certainly will not use it as a weapon against others. I know many men who lash out like wild animals when enraged, who become cruel and vengeful at those who fan their flames of rage. I know men who grow cold in their ire, become little more than emotionless dolls who refuse to face their temper with any semblance of courage. And I know men who sit with their anger until it becomes a drowning sadness that drags them to the bottom of the sea, never to return again. We may not get to choose what we feel but we always have a choice in the actions we take while feeling them. My father lived a good life. He had a loving wife, a successful daughter and, if I dare say so, a good son. My father lived a full life; one full of mistakes, of triumphs, of lost chances, and fulfilled dreams. My father wasn't born a perfect man and he didn't die as one either. Like all of us he was forced to grow, and to learn. He died an imperfect man, as we all do but he did die a good man and I suppose that is all we can hope for. He died in his sleep. Free of pain and grief. He is mourned wholly and missed dearly. I am an angry man, a rageful one. I am angry at many things, some deserved and some not but my anger does not define me, just as it didn't define my father. I won't let it. It may burn but it will not consume. When my time comes I will die as an imperfect man, a man who has made mistakes, who triumphed over his obstacles, I will lose chances to improve my life and I will fulfill some of my dreams. I may die with a loving wife, a successful daughter, and hopefully, a good son but even if I do not, I will die a good man. A wise one. A strong one. An empathetic one. As my father before me.