It’s time
4 months ago
10/09/2006
My father came up to visit for the weekend and we took Alice to the zoo. I love watching the way my dad interacts with her. He talks to her like she's a little adult and she loves the way it makes her feel important. As our day was wrapping up and we were headed back to our car my dad says, "I could sure use a cold beer." Doesn't seem like anything extraordinary does it? Well it wouldn't be if my father were not an alcoholic. In a matter of seconds I felt like I'd traveled back what seems like a million years ago to that scared twelve year old sitting on a bar stool at her father's favorite pub. I remember watching my father tip back beer after beer, occasionally glancing my way to make sure I hadn't moved. I remember feeling abandoned. I remember feeling trapped in a reality I couldn't escape. As I stood there staring at my father as he seemed oblivious that his remarks would bother me at all I responded, "I could have used a father when I was growing up." He didn't respond and now there was this uncomfortable silence surrounding us. We both quickly pretended that the moment hadn't occurred at all just like we've done a hundred times before but denial only comforts you momentarily.
After we got home and Alice went down for a nap we sat in my living room and it was apparent that neither of us knew how to get past the moment we tried to deny existence. "Did you ever forgive me," he asked. I sat there for a moment not knowing what to say. I know I've tried to forgive him and sometimes I think I've actually convinced myself that I have but then the reality of his disease stands firmly in front of me and the pain that's accumulated all these years seems to be the only thing I can acknowledge. "I'm not sure I know how to do that," I responded. Forgiving someone has always been hard for me. People hurt you and sometimes they don't mean to but other times they inflict that pain even when they are fully aware of it. I know he has a disease, one that he cannot control but this huge part of me despises the part of him that has never tried to control it. I think about Lash and how lucky his kids are that their father loves himself and them enough to get sober. Why didn't my dad feel the same? Why even now at the age of 38 do I still feel so 'affected' by his choices? I ask myself if I did to my children what my dad did to me, would I want them to forgive me? It's a hard question to answer because there's this huge part of me that believes that forgiving my father enables him to relinquish his guilt. Maybe there's this twisted little part of me that thinks his guilt is the only thing that allows me any sort of vindication. Maybe I'm afraid that if I forgive him it makes all the pain I've endured meaningless.
So we sat there, a father humbled by his mistakes and a daughter broken by them. So many times I've convinced myself that I'm whole, that I've accepted who and what my father is but the truth is I do not know if I'll ever be able to. I still wonder what he sees at the bottom of that beer bottle and if it's magnificent enough to keep him from looking up at the life he's throwing away.
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I too use to sit with my dad in his favorite pub and watch him drink beer after beer. I often wondered if other fathers did this with their kids, but I always seemed to be the only one there.
That was the only thing my dad ever did with us, never a family vacation or the ball field. I have tried many times to have a relationship with my dad but to no advail. I know that I will never forgive him for not being there, not being the dad I know he could have been. I will just keep building that wall that separates me from the emotional scares he has left me.
This is a deep one.
((Thank you for sharing))
Memories. Growing up with alcoholic parents...they all seem to be the same...to some extent huh?
Thank you for sharing... more than you needed to.
How many times have i screamed that i wish i had a mother growing up. But now the pain is past, and there is only emptiness.
What is there left?
I think, there before the grace of god, go I.
I still love her anyway.
...sometimes.
...forgiveness? It's all a part of our humility, yes?
"I'm sorry." "I forgive you."
Why is it so hard to say these things? Will it be 40 more years? I have no idea.
Will I stand over her and scream at her and beg her to apologize?
No. She is not the same.
And nor am I...
I see you,
JJ
Next to his hospital bed, as he struggled for every breath, we finally found the courage to say the words we'd been too afraid to utter. "I love you." "I'm sorry." "I forgive you."
When he passed away less than two weeks later I was grief stricken, yet knew I had no regrets. Telling him I forgave him took every ounce of love and courage I had. The peace I felt when he died was because we'd connected at last and said the words we had to say.
There is freedom in forgiveness.
♥ CeeCi
I can't pretend at all that I've ever gone through something like this so I don't know, but I was really touched by CeeCi's comment. I wouldn't want you to never get that chance to tell your father the words he probably really needs to hear, and you might need to say them as well. I'm not saying it has to be now, but I just hope that you can tell him someday. xxoo