Sins of the Father

Fate has a way of turning pictures around, doesn't it? Bernie Madoff has found that out with great loss to his heart.

Ten years ago, he was riding high on the hog, or the bull, certainly, as we have found out, the BS. He managed, somehow, to convince his friends and family, and others, that he was a smart investor.

But as we learned about six years ago, he wasn't smarter than anybody. In fact, he proved that the only thing he was, surely, was that he was so dumb, as much as his "investors", he was nothing more than a common thief.

We learned in Wednesday's late online edition of the New York Post that his son Andrew passed on Wednesday morning from lymphoma. His older son, Mark, passed in 2010 by committing suicide.

So, Bernie has lost both his sons. Isn't that an irony? He robbed hundreds, if not thousands, of men, women and companies of their investments, their nest eggs, their retirement funds.

The sins of the father have taken the lives of both his beneficiaries, his legacy. Seems to me to be a fair trade-off for Madoff, doesn't it?

But, in the end, the thief paid some of his penance with the deaths of his sons. No amount of jail time can ever make that pain go away. He got some small measure of what he truly deserves.

The man who was riding high is now utterly alone. THAT is his earthly punishment as he lives in the Hell he created for himself.

For now, and possibly Forever, Heaven can wait.