It’s been 8 years since my father passed away on a day like today. A few years ago, I wrote this article on him and our relationship. This post (on the original site) has received thousands of views and dozens of comments. So I felt maybe you’d like it as well.
Growing up in a family with an addict as the head of the household was, at the very least, challenging. The emotional roller coaster, the volatility of the environment, and the overwhelming stress were things I became accustomed to by the time I was ten. Peace seemed like an impossible concept, and I envied families whose picture-perfect parents made mine seem like the Rocky Horror Picture Show. There was endless chaos and probably enough tears to fill the Hoover Damn, but somehow we always pulled together; and, I guess, in retrospect it wasn’t so bad.
My immediate family consisted of my mom and dad, my three siblings, and myself. My father was an alcoholic and a gambler, to my knowledge — I didn’t know much more of what he did because I was never close enough to him to find out. In reality, what I knew about him relied heavily on what I experienced and on what my mother let us know, which was never too much.
I remember the constant fighting and yelling between my parents whenever my dad would make it home after one of his infamous disappearances.
I remember the constant fighting and yelling between my parents whenever my dad would make it home after one of his infamous disappearances. Or how my mom would get us all in the car and go drag him out of the Miami Jai-Alai, where often he’d spend days and most of our income. I can still hear my mom screaming at him angrily while he — dejected, tired, and filthy — made his way behind her into the car. It was fairly silent the whole ride home; but in an almost rehearsed manner they would head to their room, lock the door, and begin to argue. It wasn’t something novel to my brother, sisters and I; we had become so used to it, we sometimes ignored it was even happening. We were all too familiar with the routine: the affairs, the drunken disappearances, the lack of money due to gambling, and the violent fighting that ended up with my father leaving the house only to have him return a few weeks later to start the cycle all over again.
Naturally, most of us grew up to resent our father. And in an effort to protect our mother, whom we saw as our sole guardian, we would urge her to leave him. More than anything, we wanted sanity.
I, for one, grew up hating my father — which is ironic because everyone would always tell me how alike we were. How could I hate someone who was such an enormous part of me? The worst part was that my father was a nice, generous, and intelligent man: many people loved him and admired him for qualities I couldn’t see until well after his death.
Which brings me to my point.
For so long I was so angry and self-absorbed that I couldn’t see past my own emotions. I guess as a child and a teenager, my behavior could be excused as I believed the world revolved around me. I was blinded by a rage perpetuated by my feelings of helplessness and ignorance. I essentially hated my father, a man who had devoted his entire life to providing for my family, because he wasn’t good enough for me.
Me, me, me.
Time passed and my father was basically excommunicated from our family nucleus. We could no longer deal with his detrimental habits towards both himself and our family. We confronted him about his alcoholism and asked him to choose. And when he left our home and our lives, we were angry and confused. How could he pick alcohol and self-destruction over us? We had been taught that parents love their kids above all else; yet, here was a man who loved rum and coke more than anything, even himself.
Years passed with periods of time where I rarely saw him. I knew he had been close to death at one point, but after that he had recovered and he too had become resentful towards the family he felt had abandoned him. Then one day, I got the call. My father had passed. He was only 50 years old. I was confused and sad but mostly upset that I didn’t love him enough to feel what I thought I should feel at that moment. I was still so angry at him. Forgiveness was an unattainable concept.
Time ran its course, and my anger eventually subsided. I searched for ways to cope with my loss, to understand why I felt the way I did. I researched addiction and gave myself therapy. I read and I read, and then I read some more. The more I learned about addiction, the more I forgave my father. I realized that there were many less-than-perfect circumstances in his life; and while that wasn’t enough for me to excuse his behavior, it was certainly enough for me to understand him and accept him more. I had watched my father destroy himself; I had witnessed a human being completely ignore his survival instinct and continue to ingest the very poison he knew would kill him, willingly. It was then when I decided to let go and try to remember him fondly.
Today, I understand that as sons and daughters, we are often demanding of our parents. We have high expectations that stem from admiration and dependency; but we forget that they too are fallible, and that there are no guidelines on how to be the perfect mom or dad. It has been six years since his death, but I can finally say that I love my dad for who he was, his addiction aside. I am grateful for the sacrifices he made for my family, and I am sad that his life ended the way it did. While it may be too little too late for my father and I to rekindle our relationship, I hope I am still in time to share my story and help some people out there realize that sometimes we are so worried about what we are going through that we don’t stop to truly comprehend the plight of others. And that sometimes it’s better to put hate aside and forgive.