David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

David McElroy

I feel anger and hurt, but I mostly wonder how I came from this man

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After three days of rather detached and clinical responses to my father’s death, I’ve finally had a tremendous flood of emotions about him tonight.

I’m angry. I’m hurt. I’m filled with rage. I don’t have adequate words to describe how shaken I am.

I picked up his last worldly possessions late Friday afternoon. He had little enough remaining that it all fit into his car, a white 2001 Toyota Avalon. I drove home with something like a sense of dread. The people with whom he had been living told me they had gone through his things — looking for a will or something that might give instructions about his wishes — and discovered journal entries and letters which I would find interesting. I haven’t looked for those yet.

But when I got home, I started his old MacBook Air. What I’ve found so far makes me sick.

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There are times we need to quit; what do you need to quit today?

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I used to be a really good quitter.

I don’t mean that in a negative way. I just mean that I always knew when to walk away from something that was no longer right for me.

When I was 21 years old, I was made managing editor of a small daily newspaper. Although I soon turned 22, I was still the youngest managing editor of a daily paper in the country at the time. (My technical skills were fantastic, but I was a terrible manager. I didn’t have a clue how to manage people at that age.)

I had been offered a full-time job as managing editor of a weekly newspaper at the end of my junior year at the University of Alabama. I first turned it down, but then I became intrigued. I took the job, thinking I’d spend a year getting experience and then I’d go back to school. But after about eight months at the weekly, I was promoted to sports editor of the daily owned by the same company. Just four months later, I was promoted again — to managing editor of the daily.

After nearly a year in that job, I started feeling that it was time to move on. One Sunday morning, I was driving to church when I realized it was time to quit.

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As a child, I was a capable liar, because I mimicked a narcissist

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We were on the way to the home of my father’s new boss. I was 11 or 12.

“David, if he asks you about your foot, here’s what you need to know,” my father said as he drove. “You accidentally got it cut by the blade of a lawn mower. You went to the emergency room, but it wasn’t very bad. If he wants to see what it looks like, tell him it hurts if you take your shoe off, so you can’t.”

I acknowledged my assignment and added a couple of details for effect. My father approved my additions. I was ready to play my role backing up an excuse he had used when he needed to leave work one day.

I didn’t know the full story. I never knew the full story when it came to his lies. I just knew how to lie. I was very, very good at lying.

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