u/2552686

I live in Med Center and yesterday I saw the flags at M.D. Anderson at half mast. Today I saw some at a restaurant at half mast. Anyone know why?

Long story short, I had a brother who died of cancer a few months before I was born. My Dad had prayed and prayed and my brother still died anyway. Dad did not deal with this well. The idea that there were some things he could not control and his kids dying of cancer was one of them was not something he could deal with. This was the late 60s early 70s so admitting he had a problem and getting psychological help wasn't going to happen, he just prayed the rosary more, and more, and more. He never got violent, he just became hyper-controlling of what he could control.. i.e. me. No T.V. watching, period. Very few friends, no popular music, no sports. He censored everything. One day I came home and found that he had thrown out all my Star Trek stuff because he had been reading one of my Star Trek books and he thought it was immoral the way Captain Kirk slept with one of the hot alien women in one of the episodes, so all my stuff was tossed. I finally got sent to Catholic boarding school for High School and was shocked and amazed at how much MORE freedom I had there than I had had at home.

In any case Dad wasn't just tyrannical, he was also clinically depressed. His solution... pray more rosaries. He would come home from work, have dinner, and then he wouldn't socialize, he wouldn't watch TV, he wouldn't talk with me or my mom or go for a walk or do anything. He would go to his room and lie on his bed and either read or pray the rosary. That was it. For decades. No effort to fix himself, to treat me or my Mom better, to actually change anything... just more and more blasted rosaries. He was clinically depressed and he was darned well going to take the rest of the family with him.

He's dead now, and I know that he was reacting out of pain and fear, but none of that makes me less angry, and a lot of that anger is, unfortunately, directed at the rosary.

Frankly this is becoming a problem for me because whenever I try and get more involved in the church the standard answer is ALWAYS "Pray the Rosary". EVERYONE is ALWAYS pushing "pray the rosary" at me... and I understand why they do this, and I know that Mary encourages it, and trust me I know the whole thing and I am a huge fan of Fatima. I'm NOT saying anything bad about it at all. I'm excited at ya'll for praying it and doing it. Good for you.

I just have the Pavlovian reaction of ANGER at the rosary, because of my dad.

What can I do instead?

I'm watching, and I am just stunned on how much credibility Carter has. She just walks in, episode after episode, and says a long scientific sounding speech, and NOBODY understands what she said.. but they DO understand it was Carter... so they cut her a blank check, give her a full scale ICBM, exotic superheavy elements, nuclear weapons, naqueda enhanced nuclear weapons that can crack a planet... the entire U.S. Energy grid... whatever she asks for.

It's just amazing.