Are There Good Arrows?

It seems to be memory lane for me at the moment . . . . This is a happy one although it won't look like it immediately. My Dad was, when I was growing up, a tortured soul. An artist to the core, he was chained to a nine-to-five job, adding up columns of figures for Escom, so he could put food on the table for his family. All the years I knew him, he was doing that same job - and hating every moment. Its no wonder that the bottle he learned to lean on during the war became his support and his nightmare. And ours. He was never abusive or violent in any way towards any of us He was just miserable, bad tempered and distant. Communication from him was always correctional, instructional or disapproving. Then one day, out of the blue, while we were all sitting round the diningroom table, my Dad said someone had told him I had given up my turn on the beach swings for another child. And he was pleased with me. It was such *a moment* for me - I still get a lump in my throat when I remember it Postscript: Just FYI, my Dad was sober the last 10 years of his life and the most wonderful, funny, intelligent, thoughtful man emerged. So it all ended like a fairytale.