Dear Dad. I Am No Dummy

Throughout my childhood I was repeatedly called a dummy by my dad. When I was “asked” to help him, I’d be repeatedly slapped in the brain by verbally being called a dummy whenever I didn’t meet his expectations while preforming a task.

If I grabbed the wrong screwdriver, I was called a dummy. The wrong hammer, you dummy. If I broke a nail while trying to pound it through a board. You guessed it. I was a dummy.

I believe my dad was the victim of generational abuse, but I have no way to confirm that. What I do know is, I believe I was so much like my dad that it forced him to deal with emotions and behaviors he was not ready to deal with. This is why I was a dummy.

I was dumb, because I may have been repeating his downfalls. I was him—only younger. When I didn’t know how to use a hammer. I was dumb. When I didn’t understand how to use a wrench, I was dumb. When I crashed a car, I was dumb. Okay. Several cars. But damnit, stay with me.

When I was veering off course in my dads eyes I was dumb. Not because I didn’t know what I was doing, but rather, I was repeating his mistakes. Perfectly.

Now. Here I am asking myself if people are dumb because they don’t see things the same way I see them. They don’t build things the way I build them. They don’t fix things the way I fix things. Are they dumb? NO. They are individuals. They function the way they function.

Don’t change that.

So I say to my dad, thanks. Because I was dumb, I observed more intently. Because I was dumb, I listened more intensely. Because I was dumb, I taught.

Thank you, your son John