Your father is on fire but do not be alarmed. See how mom is taking the pizza out of the oven and tripping over your activity cube that she left in the middle of the kitchen floor? She how mom adjusts the volume on the radio and puts the salt shaker back in the cabinet where it belongs? Your mother is not concerned. Yes, your father is howling, he's hopping into a cold shower and we can hear the water splashing against tile, now he's dragged himself back into the living room, wrapped up in the comforter he peeled off his bed because his beet read, burning skin is now freezing cold.
Your father may well appear as if he's kicking over the mick, but there's no reason to fret. He's merely having a reaction to the Nyacin supplement he swallowed twenty minutes ago because - and I hate to tell you this part - high cholesterol runs in his family, and that means it runs in your family too. This has all happened before. There's really nothing to be done except wait it out.
Olive I'm going to tell you something : life, as a rule, is going to hurt. Physically, it's going to rain down the hurt in the form of paper cuts, skinned elbows, fingers in car doors, head against pavement, shin bone against- well, ANYTHING- toes against doorjams, hangnails, earaches, and steam.
It can feel very menacing at times. Certainly life will not always be hurting you, I can look back and think fondly on whole weeks where I managed to stay out of harm's way, but there are going to be some days where all you can do is sit down on the couch and think to yourself, 'Ouch! Holy crap! Ouch!'
But, daughter, life is also very, very, very funny. Much funnier than anyone will ever let on about.
And don't worry about your dad. He's a trooper.
