Category Archives: fathers

Whiteout

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It’s just like any other road trip that is expected to be uneventful. You get in the car, and all is calm without a hitch. Ten miles into your trip the snow starts falling in such innocuous flakes at first that they could almost be dandruff. Not to disappoint though, the snow picks up, and before you know it, it’s a big deal. It happened so incrementally that you initially did not panic, but you are now in that place where you know you cannot go back, you cannot pull over, you can only go forward ever so slowly. It’s that kind of situation where you know in your heart that at the end of this trip you will either reach your destination with the feeling of a victor finishing a grueling marathon, or you will meet your demise in your some horrible car accident that is the stuff of nightmares.

And that is the current state of affairs with DID integration.

Once I accepted the diagnosis it was a bit interesting at first, learning more about myself, figuring things out, etc. Discovering Letty was even a joy once I got passed the scared stage. Up until recently I had the idea that her purpose was to “keep a look out” for danger. The “keep a lookout” part was only half the story. The person she’s looking out for, apparently, is the other piece of the puzzle …

“He be comin’ back!”

“Who’s coming back, sweetie?”

“My Dad is comin’ back! He’s comin’ back! I wish everyone would stop sayin’ he’s not comin’ back! It’s mean!”

“Honey, no one is trying to be mean. It’s just that he’s very sick, and that is why he cannot come back to us. I know he wishes he could. We wish he could, but he can’t. Remember when I told you that he is addicted? That is a kind of sick.”

“But … but shouldn’t we go see him to tell him that we love him so he knows?”

“Oh honey, I wish we could. But it wouldn’t be good for us to try to do that.”

“You be like everybody else that tries to tell me to stop. I’m not gonna stop lookin’ for him. I not gonna stop …”

And she cries, and cries ,and cries. I am beyond exhausted.

Unrelated, or maybe it’s related, who knows … I’m taking an introduction to chemical dependency class for my own knowledge, and even reading the textbook gets Letty going.

Alcohol dependence is a progressive and fatal disease for those unable to exercise abstinence from alcohol.

“He be comin’ back!”

“Cirrhosis of the liver for those unable to stop drinking is an inevitable …”

“He comin’ back! You’ll see!”

Yep, I’m definitely in the midst of the whiteout.

Father’s Day, be gone

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Father's Day Cake 2009

I recently wrote about my father, and I find myself thinking of him again on this day. I remember Father’s Day 2008 when I reached out to him, and he was drunk. He had wanted me to reach out to him, but when I did he was unable to be present in the conversation because he was drunk. This experience sent me on a drinking and acting out binge of my own. A few months later, after I entered sobriety, he sent me a chapbook of poetry. I really did not look at that book until a few weeks ago.

His drinking is so painful to me that I can’t have a relationship with him. I wish there was some way to work around it, but there isn’t. I get too messed up in my brain when I can see and hear his sickness.

I want to write more, specifically I want to write about the few good memories that I have of him. Today I want to remember the good of him, the part of him that resonated with me.

But, alas, I cannot. It’s hard enough to write this small blog post, and it has taken me an inordinately long time to do so. I’m foggy, and in and out of being present. And so, Dad, I’m sorry that I cannot do better than this post in your honor today. I hope we cross paths again before one of us leaves this earth. I miss you, and I still love you, even though you have a hard time accepting my love. It is there.

(Photo credit: Jim, the Photographer)

A Memorial Day for memories, but not the usual sort …

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Today I found myself waiting for a cleaner I hired that never showed up, and that was just as well. I surprisingly felt okay, and I was able to do some cleaning myself without getting too freaked out in my apartment. That was one reason I hired a cleaner, so that things could get done in my apartment that were being neglected because of my inability to spend long periods of time in my place.

But today was different, and I can’t figure out why, though I am not complaining. I started cleaning off my coffee table while I was waiting for the cleaner. Before I knew it I realized he wasn’t coming, but I was on a roll. So, I cleaned it off. It took a while, but I did it. And here it is …

coffee table

I even used the vacuum! Although it took a while to achieve such a small task of cleaning off a coffee table and vacuuming I still felt accomplished. And I felt that way because I did not freak out. I did not start getting anxious and scared and depressed in my place. I did not feel like dying, and the thoughts I used to get from Belle about death were not there. And thanks be to God for that.

It was still a hard day, and I certainly felt sadness. The difference was that it did not feel like the end of the world. The book you see on the coffee table is a poetry chapbook that my long-lost father sent me back in 2008 when we briefly reconnected. We could not maintain the connection because his active alcoholism was too much. I called him on Father’s Day that year, and became upset at hearing my father drunk on the phone. I just could not maintain a connection under such unpredictable circumstances, never knowing when he would be sober. I found that book of poetry while I was cleaning. It took my breath away. I realized that when I received it back in 2008 I had not paid much attention to it because I was still mad at him for being drunk on Father’s Day that same year in 2008. The book, braille for the heart, is a chapbook of poetry by Robert Vasquez.

poetry

And for the first time since I received the book I picked it up and looked at it. I really looked at it. For the first time ever I looked at it without anger. As I started flipping through it I found a page that he had bookmarked with a metal bookmark. I always thought it was just randomly put there. I had never really looked at what he had bookmarked until today. Here is what I found.

POEM

He underlined the last line, “Music is braille for the heart.” It just takes my breath away to see this because the underlining was meant for me, at least I presume it was. I miss him, but I don’t like thinking about how much I miss him because the pain is a huge hole in my heart. The pain of knowing that he’s been walking dead to me for decades. The alcoholism took him from me, and will likely keep him from me for the rest of our days. He is the only person on this earth who truly gets me. Case in point, he sent me a chapbook of Latino poetry without knowing how much I love poetry. I know he sent it because he connected with the chapbook. But the truth is that I’ve loved poetry since I was a child. And though he was not around when I fell in love with poetry I know that he knows because he’s the only one that knows me. And the only one that knows me is without reach. I cannot talk to him about life, or any of the challenges or accomplishments I’ve had. If I could talk to him I know he would relate to so much of it. Hell, we’re both even alcoholics. I was more like him than I wanted to be.

Oh, I miss him so. There is so much loss here that it is just hardly palpable, especially since the loss of him left me with my mother. The irony is in the fact that he’s the parent that really loved me, but his alcoholism kept us apart. This one gift from my actively alcoholic father is light years beyond anything my mother has ever given me. She may have been present, but she never had the capacity for love. It is simply not within her. Yet, she is the parent I got to be with, the one who could not love. The one who could love was and is too sick. He is sick, but I still love him, and always will.