@agmoore, I hope you're just as adept at recognizing your own brilliance. :) Too often, we sell ourselves short. I just read an entire book about the human tendency to judge by making comparisons, and that's part of the trouble.

Meanwhile, I'm still pondering how those final words convey so much. Words. Simple words.

• holding back tears for whinging was the most cardinal of sins
• no mention was made of the incident
• Dad confessed, saying he hoped he'd taught them a lesson
• what that lesson was he couldn't say.

Well, except whinging - we say "whining" - but oh, do I know how whining was not rewarded back in the day. My generation, it seems, has vowed to be more sympathetic, and I for one ended up with kids who got rewarded for complaining, and I created monsters (until they somehow outgrew it).

What makes this writing so compelling?

I'm thinking the narrator's apparent objectivity or stoicism.
No judgment is made: no accusation is leveled. No self-pity. No playing the victim card.
The pain is palpable. But even half a century later, there is no whining (whinging).
This belongs in some literary magazine or anthology - a wider audience than here at Steemit.
But how to get it published for a bigger audience....
@rhondak, are you here?