Thinking of My Parents

Am I older now 

Than my father ever lived? 

Was he just a kid?

Whenever I come across this wedding photo of my parents, I am struck by their youth. My mother lived to a ripe old age, but my father died a younger man than I am now, struck down by his depression and alcoholism and his addiction to tobacco - he did not have sufficient will to live to stop the smoking that gave him fair warning before carrying him off.
I have never liked him.

He was mean to all of us kids, striking us with his belt whenever he was angry. The beatenings and the threats of beatings stopped only when I left home; everyone else got more years of it, but as a fairly self-centered child I cared only that I was safe. I realize that I shall never fully understand what-all was going on; was this an aftermath of his war experience, or was he raised in our family's tradition of alcoholism?
It does not matter, I suppose.
I cannot say that I was a more effective parent when I had a son, briefly, during my peculiar 2nd marriage and then acquired a pair of daughters from my first ex during my divorce from my 3rd.At least I avoided violence.
But then, I was not so young as the man in this photo