Thanks John, what a lovely post. I feel sorry for Hans too - I can't imagine what it would be like to grow up unable to trust either parent. Me, my brothers the dog and even the cat looked to my mother to look after us and largely she could. we had a lot of fun times too. I thought of my father like a force of nature to stay away from where possible.
It was some time in my 30's that I woke up thinking I have an angel and a devil on my shoulder and I will need to reconcile them at some time. But then my mother said she didn't want me to think of her and my father as a duo, that she wasn't party to him and what he did and to just think of her as one parent. I still feel close to her.
