Past Is Always Present

What decides whether a child forgives his or her dad when the world probably can't? Circumstance? Self-deluding rationalizations? Love?

In The Mascot: Unraveling the Mystery of My Jewish Father's Nazi Boyhood, defined by The New York Times as "a book to keep you up at night," author Mark Kurzem traces the life path and his own discovery of how his father went from a child of about five seeing his parents killed by Nazi soldiers to becoming their pet to being adopted by rich anti-semites to an Australian upbringing to keeping the secrets of his life from himself, his wife and children until he was in his eighth decade.

In another study of a father Malte Luddin, who hardly remembers his Nazi loving dad in person, created the documentary "Two or Three Things I Know About Him." Putting his sister on camera he inquires of her feelings about dad and, hesitatingly, she answers, "I can't say [my father] wasn't a criminal, but for me, he definitely wasn't,"

And beyond art there is life. And in another example of the messiness of life, Baltimore Ravens running back Musa Smith can be a star of the University of Georgia's 2003 Sugar Bowl victory and have a middling or perhaps someday star day or even career in the NFL, but he will always have the burden — the internet shadow if nothing else — of his dad as dupe (?) of Islamic terrorists involved with the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.

Smith, like every child can say his dad's deeds are behind him, but as shown by others who are still trying to understand themselves and their fathers by looking at actions taken decades ago, that it never completely the case.

** No simpler way to say it than fathers pass on much more than genes. **