To those who complained:

To those of you that complained to my mother about what I wrote in an Ode to Troy Livingston, I say shame on you. If you had a problem with what I said, you should have taken it up with me, not my mother. You shouldn’t have hassled my mother with your petty whining and complaining. You could have left a comment, you could have messaged me, you could have spent 10 seconds on Google and found my phone number and called me or texted me. Not my mother. You are cowards and there is no excuse for it.

Nothing I said was unkind, untrue or inappropriate. Much of what I said was kind. My father was a good man. He was a great man. I will be the first to admit that. What he was to me was more complicated. What he was to me is beyond any of your comprehension. What he and I went through by the time I was 10 years old is not in your realm of understanding. How it affected him, and he and I’s relationship is vast.

I miss  my father. He was just getting to a point in his life where all of what had happened before was starting to fade and he was enjoying the present. He was just, for the first time learning to enjoy life without thinking he had to work 20 hours a day. Due to an incompetent medical professional, all of that was taken from him. He was, for all intents and purposes just entering into his prime. He learned how to say “I love you” and mean it. He may have died before we could resolve most things, but that was ok, we had a stasis that was good. We could sit in the same room and enjoy each other’s company. That was good. We could talk and share stories.

He was a good man. He was a great man. And yes, he could fix most anything. And he was learning how to fix his heart. I keep a bottle of Dewar’s on the top shelf for him should he ever come to visit. I will miss him.

Scott Livingston