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Battlegrounds
I was 5 when I was deserted by my biological father.
He was lost to me, surrendered to a bottle. From time to time he would surface a day, two, a phone call. A quick hit, only to drown again. Disappearance, then resurrection. Small snatches of memory.
A winding road and “a quick stop”, the watermelon Bubbalicious growing stale in my mouth. My sister, finally, asleep on the seat. The lights of the bar through a windshield. Driving too fast, rock walls flashing past, the smell of fresh booze and the tang of my terror.
Waiting by a window, missing ice skating with cousins and friends, for a planned visit that was never to be.
An eighth grade graduation, a white dress, a pink carnation pined to my collar, a proud mother, a father shaking with the DT’s. A Sizzler, a man I hardly knew, a step-mother, a purse being opened, something small and silver passed under the table, a quick sip, then two, then more and, eventually, the shaking stopped.
A phone call. “I’m dying.”
There would be 19 years and 3 more “deathbed” phone calls before this would be true.
Eventually I would almost be able to wrest control of the revolving door my father would swing through at his whim. This hard, and often, fought battle was waged with my mother, who could not seem to reconcile that the boy she loved and married had become a man felled by a bottle.
Years of battles that turned accomplishments and celebrations into battlegrounds. Her desire to open the door to a father in hopes of him becoming one and my desire to not have to deal with this stranger whose absence was only felt when fighting to keep him that way.
There were never any winners in these battles. We both would be bloody. Harsh words spoken in anger.
Unloving.
Selfish.
Childish.
Mean.
Unforgiving.
Gullible.
By my High School graduation I was done losing this battle to make my mother happy. I put my foot down. My “dead” father was to remain that way. There would be no further invitations from, or for, me.
Over the years I would occasionally be forced to see him. Well intentioned, but misguided, family members would try to force him upon me.
“Addiction is an illness.” They would say.
“There’s treatment. He refuses.” My reply.
So the battleground shifted from my mother to his sisters. My mind was set. My relationships would be defined strictly by me. I would not be ambushed by these women. Have me or have him, but if you ambushed me with his presence you would suffer the humiliation of having his shame and your deceit laid bare for all who were there to witness it. Eventually they too learned that I would be unwavering in my decisions.
This revolving door, this sinking and rising, the cycle of resurrection and death would not be tolerated.
Be sober and have your daughter or have your bottle and be in it.
He chose the bottle.
When his death came it was a long, drawn out affair. Cancer. As it often is, it was a slow insidious death, snaking it’s way, seemingly in no hurry, enjoying being fed by addiction, and yet moving relentlessly forward.
Once again battlegrounds were formed.
Once again I was forced to defend myself against those I loved most, all the while being labeled heartless, cold and unforgiving. I was the sinner and he was the wronged.
We tend to “whitewash” those who die. Cleansing from them their mistakes, foibles and sins. Turning them into saints instead of humans. As if, somehow, death erases the memory of the living with it.
“He fought bravely.” They would say.
Imagine how much harder he could have fought if he used both hands instead of clinging to a bottle.
“He was a great man and a wonderful Uncle.”
He refused to put down the bottle so he could pick up his daughters, how great could he be? For surely daughters are worth more than a bottle.
Silent and seething I would sit through his funeral. At one point physically restraining my mother from having her say. Circumspect through the reception afterwards.
These grieving souls, lost in their tears and washed memories when all I felt was relief. My life was my own. No more bloody battlegrounds labeled “Father”. No more revolving doors or bottles that became boozy graves only to, seemingly at their whim, regurgitate those dead residing within.
I would be sadly mistaken, for now, twice a year I must endure as his family members reinstate him to a pedestal to adorn with washed memories of their wonderful brother, uncle and friend.
Once again I am faced with a choice. Sit quietly and let them have their say or let loose my cannons and bloody their whitewashed memories.
Again a war, but this one internal. Is the greater valor in speaking or silence? Is my silence eating me alive? Would destroying their memory be the justice I seek? Or just vengeance?
So again I must sit chained to my battleground as my memories can never be washed of his sins and my mouth closed by love for those living.
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