This is my father. I named one of my sons after him. i did that as soon as i knew baby A was a boy...and fate made sure that baby looks just like him. His mother, my grandma Mac, wanted to see him in the moving pictures. put him in acting classes and had several professional headshots done. I never met my grandmother. She died when he was 12 and i don't think he ever got over it. He didn't pursue it, not just because he was sent away to live with relatives and hollywood doesn't exist in the deep south, but because of his staggering grief, and anything that reminded him of her. He lived the very hard and short life of an alcoholic and died at age 49. i've done my best to get over him as well.
It has been 22 years now that i've been without a single social lubricant. The intervention happened in my late teens and while there have been many times i've questioned the self-title of alcoholic/addict, the idea of testing that theory has little, to no appeal. i've stepped away from the confines of AA for the most part but practice the principles and find other ways to quell my obsessive nature. when asked or rather, when i find myself in the company of a 'pusher', my reply is a simple, "no thank you, i've had enough".
when i was in early therapy, my dad showed up in all his sloppy drunk glory. there was a brief battle of where i would live...where the best and safest place for me because my mother and i had such a toxic relationship. my dear sweet pop. i think he just wanted to be the knight that came to save me. he wrote a letter because sometimes the words got caught behind his tongue. in true 17 year old fashion, i dismissed it...dismissed him...chided him for being dramatic. the best i could do is hug him and tell him i loved him, but sobriety would be hard fought and rarely won in his company. that was a difficult truth then...and probably more so now. i think now he believed we could save eachother.
many years later i came across the letter during a move. i read it aloud to a handful of friends that had just spent the better part of the day, lugging very large heavy things for me. it took me a long time to get through it because the words kept getting stuck behind my tongue...it said:
Dear Kristi,
This is no bullshit. I look inside you and see enough of myself that your present position scares me. I have always been an iconoclast, by always, I mean to the extent of my memory; which not too long ago was last weekend. Now I can remember a world that couldn’t be made right without my effort and when it looked like my effort wasn’t going to be enough, I went somewhere else. Into this place where I couldn’t be touched, where I was alright and the world was fucked up. That worked fine until I realized that I wasn’t the center of the universe and that whatever I did would really matter very little in the entire scope of things. Now comes a time when I want so very much for what I do to matter. I am sometimes sad, and sometimes angry because you would hurt someone who means so much to me – you. Maybe I am being selfish; like in the movies when it’s alright for some people to die because they aren’t the stars. To me you are a star, shining in the universe to fulfill my destiny, my very reason for existence.
If that’s too heavy for you, start your own goddamn destiny. And for the sake of those who love you, broaden your horizons beyond the scope of the next moment in the heartbeat of time. There is a world out there full of love and good, notwithstanding the shit you may have to wade through.
I love you Kris, live, come home with me and when the time is right – you can fly.
-Dad
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