This is Where I Leave You

by Jonathan Tropper

Dad didn’t believe in God, but he was a lifelong member of the Church of Shit or Get Off the Can.

You get married to have an ally against your family, and now I’m heading into the trenches alone.

At some point you lose sight of your actual parents; you just see a basketful of history and unresolved issues.

Childhood feels so permanent, like it’s the entire world, and then one day it’s over and you’re shoveling wet dirt onto your father’s coffin, stunned at the impermanence of everything.

In my family, we don’t so much air our grievances as wallow in them. Anger and resentment are cumulative.

“It would be a terrible mistake to go through life thinking that people are the sum total of what you see.”