My sons have almost no sense of who their grandfather was. I've tried and tried—always too hard, always too earnestly—but they just aren't interested, and I can't blame them. 

How much time and energy have I wasted in worrying that I've given them my father's "bad blood" curse? In twisting up my own mental pretzels around my absent father, my fear of becoming like my absent father?  

Children are beautifully simple. They just want to love their fathers. As long as I don't fuck up, mine will get what they need. The sooner I dig my way out of the labyrinth and stop thinking about my dad so much, the better off they'll be.