Story by Brian Swagerty
It was the first day of summer school, and Jane and I were walking home together. Mom had recently shown me how to make the tuna salad mixture for tuna salad sandwiches. I knew that Mom was not home, and I felt this was a time to help out by making lunch for everyone. I had planned out how I would make peanut butter and jelly and tuna salad sandwiches. I shared this with Jane as we were walking home. I had visions of Mom coming home and being so proud of me. Anyway, Jane decided that this was not going to happen. When we got close to the house, she ran ahead of me and yelled back that I wasn’t going to be able to complete my plan. She ran through the door into the kitchen from the garage, just ahead of me and slammed the door shut and locked it. I was furious. The harder I pounded on the door, the more Jane taunted me back. I finally really lost it and the next thing I knew, my foot was stuck in the door after kicking it. I remember the cold sweat of realization of what I had just done. I got into big trouble when Mom got home, and I couldn’t get the story across as to why I was so mad.
I was normally a very easy-going person as I was growing up. Not too much bothered me. However, if someone were to push my buttons in just the right way, and keep doing it, I could lose it. I don’t remember the actual circumstances, but Donna was taunting me in my room. I remember Donna standing near my door, and I was on my bed. She continued far beyond what was safe or reasonable. She made me so mad that I reached up for the first available object on my dresser and threw it at her. It happened to be a metal figurine that luckily missed her, but unfortunately went into the wall next to her. After this incident, Dad sat down and talked with me. He shared his concern that if I didn’t learn how to control my temper that I could end up killing someone someday. If I had a better aim, it could have been Donna that day.
With time, I realized that my father had to learn how to control his hidden rage. I also remember sitting down with a couple of my sons to have the same talk.
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