In the Blood

by Lisa Unger

As parents, we must accept that our children are who they are. We can’t make them into something we want, or be disappointed in them because they don’t meet our artificial expectations.

There was murder in my blood, in both strands of my DNA. I had done everything in my power to escape it, but no matter where you go, there you are.

There’s murder in my blood. A twisting rope of psychosis from my father and maternal grandfather, and probably others before them. From father to son, from father to son, it travels down the chain, a poison in the blood. Only it doesn’t kill you. I have often wished it did. I hate the thought of who I am. I despise my origins. I have done everything in my power to shed that person. And yet that person is with me always.

The gene for violence, for murder, is one that travels through only the male DNA, as far as they know at this time.

We are bound by blood, but we are strangers of circumstance. We are so far apart that we cannot come together now.